The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger [Paperback]

Marc Levinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0691136408 | ISBN-13: 978-0691136400

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about.

Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. It recounts how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur, Malcom McLean, turned containerization from an impractical idea into a massive industry that slashed the cost of transporting goods around the world and made the boom in global trade possible.

But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential.

Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A book about the history of the shipping container? At first, one has to wonder why. (An eventuality not lost on the author, who muses "What is it about the container that is so important? Surely not the thing itself...the standard container has all the romance of a tin can.") The catch, though, is that Levinson, an economist, "treats containerization not as shipping news, but as a development that has sweeping consequences for workers and consumers all around the globe." That latter statement drives this book, which is about the economic ramifications of the shipping container-from the closing of traditional (and antiquated) ports to the rise of Asia as the world's preeminent provider of inexpensive consumer goods (distributed, naturally, using mammoth shipping containers). Levinson maintains his focus on the economics of shipping vast quantities of merchandise, organizing the book into snappy, thematic chapters on different facets of shipping ("The Trucker," and "Union Disunion," for instance), an approach that lends itself well to spot-reading. Throughout, the writing is clean-more informal than rigidly academic (union boss Teddy Gleason is "a voluble Irishman born hard by the New York docks")-making the book suitable for casual readers as well as students looking for a different take on the evolution of 20th-century world economics.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

One of the most significant, yet least noticed, economic developments of the last few decades [was] the transformation of international shipping. . . . The idea of containerization was simple: to move trailer-size loads of goods seamlessly among trucks, trains and ships, without breaking bulk. . . . Along the way, even the most foresighted people made mistakes and lost millions. . . . [A] classic tale of trial and error, and of creative destruction. (Virginia Postrel The New York Times )

Marc Levinson's concern is business history on a grand scale. He tells a moral tale. There are villains ... and there is one larger than life hero: Malcom McLean. . . . Levinson has produced a fascinating exposition of the romance of the steel container. I'll never look at a truck in the same way again. (Howard Davies The Times )

Like much of today's international cargo, Marc Levinson's The Box arrives 'just in time.'. . . It is a tribute to the box itself that far-off places matter so much to us now: It has eased trade, sped up delivery, lowered prices and widened the offering of goods everywhere. Not bad for something so simple and self-contained. (Tim W. Ferguson The Wall Street Journal )

[A] smart, engaging book. . . . Mr. Levinson makes a persuasive case that the container has been woefully underappreciated. . . . [T]he story he tells is that of a classic disruptive technology: the world worked in one fashion before the container came onto the scene, and in a completely different fashion after it took hold. (Joe Nocera The New York Times )

Mr Levinson. . . . makes a strong case that it was McLean's thinking that led to modern-day containerisation. It altered the economics of shipping and with that the flow of world trade. Without the container, there would be no globalization. (The Economist )

A fascinating new book. . . . [I]t shows vividly how resistance to technological change caused shipping movements to migrate away from the Hudson river to other East Coast ports. (Management Today )

Marc Levinson's The Box . . . illustrates clearly how great risks are taken by entrepreneurs when entrenched interests and government regulators conspire against them. Even after these opponents are dispatched, technological and economic uncertainty plague the entrepreneur just as much as the vaunted 'first-mover advantage' blesses him, perhaps more. The story of the shipping container is the story of the opponents of innovation. (Chris Berg Institute of Public Affairs Review )

International trade . . . owes its exponential growth to something utterly ordinary and overlooked, says author Marc Levinson: the metal shipping container.... The Box makes a strong argument. . . . Levinson . . . spins yarns of the men who fought to retain the old On the Waterfront ways and of those who made the box ubiquitous. (Michael Arndt BusinessWeek )

[An] enlightening new history. . . . [The shipping container] was the real-world equivalent of the Internet revolution. (Justin Fox Fortune )

Marc Levinson's The Box is . . . broad-ranging and . . . readable. It describes not just the amazing course of the container-ship phenomenon but the turmoil of human affairs in its wake. (Bob Simmons The Seattle Times )

Author and economist Marc Levinson recounts the little-known story of how the humble shipping container has revolutionized world commerce. He tells his tale using just the right blend of hard economic data and human interest. . . . Mr. Levinson's elegant weave of transportation economics, innovation, and geography is economic history at its accessible best. (David K. Hurst Strategy + Business )

The Box is . . . an engrossing read. . . . The book is well-written, with detailed notes and an index. I found it absorbing and informative from the first page. (Graham Williams Sydney Morning Herald )

This well-researched and highly readable book about the ubiquitous containers that carry so much of the world's freight will no doubt surprise most readers with its description of the immensity of the impact this simple rectangular steel box has had on global and regional economics, employment, labor relations, and the environment. . . . The Box makes for an excellent primer on innovation, risk taking, and strategic thinking. It's also a thoroughly good read. (Craig B. Grossgart Taiwan Business Topics )

The ubiquitous shipping container . . . as Mark Levinson's multilayered study shows . . . has transformed the global economy. (The Australian )

By artfully weaving together the nuts and bolts of what happened at which port with the grand sweep of economic history, Levinson has produced a marvelous read for anyone who cares about how the interconnected world economy came to be. (Neil Irwin Washington Post )

Here's another item we see every day that had a revolutionary effect. The shipping container didn't just rearrange the shipping industry, or make winners of some ports (Seattle and Tacoma among them). It changed the dynamics and economics of where goods are made and shipped to. (Bill Virgin Seattle Post-Intelligencer )

Excellent. (J Bradford DeLong The Edge Financial Daily )

An engrossing read. . . . The book is well written, with detailed notes and an index. I found it absorbing and informative from the first page. (Sydney Morning Herald )

A fascinating history of the shipping container. (Richard N. Cooper Foreign Affairs )

For sheer originality . . . [this book] by Marc Levinson, is hard to beat. The Box explains how the modern era of globalization was made possible, not by politicians agreeing to cut trade tariffs and quotas, but by the humble shipping container. (David Smith The Sunday Times )

Ingenious analysis of the phenomenon of containerism. (Stefan Stern Financial Times )

This is a smoothly written history of the ocean shipping container. . . . Marc Levinson turns it into a fascinating economic history of the last 50 years that helps us to understand globalization and industrial growth in North America. (Harvey Schachter Globe and Mail )

This is an ingenious analysis of containerization--a process that, Levinson argues, in fact made globalization possible. (Business Voice )

Using a blend of hard economic data and financial projections, combined with human interest, Levinson manages to provide insights into a revolution that changed transport forever and transformed world trade. (Leon Gettler The Age )

There is much to like about Marc Levinson's recent book, The Box. . . . Levinson uses rich detail, a combination of archival and anecdotal data to build his story, and is constantly moving across levels of observation. . . . And the story of the box is a very good read. (Administrative Science Quarterly )

A lively and entertaining history of the shipping container. . . . The Box does a fine job of demonstrating how exciting the container industry is, and how much economists stand to lose by ignoring it. (William Sjostrom EH.Net )

The Box is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in understanding the emergence of our contemporary 'globalized' world economy. (Pierre Desrochers Independent Review )

[T]he insights the book provides make it a worthwhile read for anyone interested in how international trade in goods has evolved over the last 50 years. (Meredith A. Crowley World Trade Review )

The Box reveals the subject to be interesting and powerful, shedding light on all kinds of issues, from the role of trade unions to the Vietnam War. (NUMAST Telegraph )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (January 7, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691136408
• ISBN-13: 978-0691136400
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Civil
  • #49 in Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Industrial, Manufacturing & Operational Systems
  • #64 in Books > Business & Investing > Economics > Economic History

More About the Author

Marc Levinson is an economist and historian specializing in business and finance. He was formerly finance and economics editor of The Economist, worked as an economist at a New York bank, and served as senior fellow for international business at the Council on Foreign Relations. For more information, check out his website at www.marclevinson.net.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

232 of 234 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Boxing in goods unleashes globalization: The world is not flat August 20, 2006

By Peter Lorenzi

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

In "On the waterfront," perhaps the saddest point of the film is where Fr. Barry eulogizes K. O. Duggan, killed off by the mob. But Marc Levinson has located a larger villain, the real force that killed off so many longshoremen's careers: the standardized shipping container. While a highly trained crane operator working today's docks earns $120,000 a year, their numbers are few and few of them are former longshoremen or sons of longshoremen. And cargo handling costs have dropped over 90%. Yet this is only the start. The shipping container reduced spoilage, theft, insurance costs, delays, and the entire cost of going global.

Levinson's well-researched treatment of a seemingly pedestrian subject works effectively to show that the world is not flat. The original dust cover of Friedman's best-selling book shows a tall-masted ship going over the edge of the 'flat' earth, confirming flat earth society members' discarded beliefs but distorting and mischaracterizing globalization. Levinson's rich, detailed, data-filled work shows the stark difference between Levinson's work with The Economist and Friedman's with The New York Times. Levinson uses a thorough, comprehensive economic and technological analysis, while Friedman flies around the world with a consistent "gee whiz" attitude of surprise. Levinson traces multitudes of disparate events and finds common links where Friedman finds common links and illustrates them with cursory events. Levinson is an economist; Friedman is a journalist. Friedman mixes metaphors and hyperbole; Levinson mixes in a wide range of colorful characters and challenges. Levinson is an editor; Friedman needs one. People who want to understand the recent history, impetus and infrastructure of globalization need to read "The box."

Fifty years ago, maverick southern trucker Malcolm McLean devised a method for a quantum leap forward in the handling of cargo in transit. At that time, the process of loading and offloading of ships had not changed much in hundreds of years. Loose cargo, irregular, unpredictable and back-breaking work, light-fingered workers, corrupt stevedores, poor management, and mob-controlled unions were the order of the day and most orders changed on a daily basis. The workers probably suffered the most, but the hidden impact on global trade was severe as well. Some small and expensive products -- whiskey, watches -- could not be shipped reliably and safely when subject to massive pilferage. While containers started as a domestic solution, their global use worked miracles in reducing the costs of getting products thousands of miles, and not just on what came to be huge, fast new ocean sailing ships. Railroads and truckers participated in this transformation. Markets opened up. Ports like Felixstowe (England) and Singapore emerged rapidly, displacing older, intransigent ports. Military shipping in containers from America's west coast for the Vietnam War made return trips with stop offs in Japan a cheap, added source of shipping revenue. Cheap-to-ship Japanese products flooded America. Ports sprung up where investors and governments were willing to build cranes, re-build docks and dredge canals. Corrupt, inefficient labor could be bypassed and eliminated, no matter how powerful the union or onerous the contracts. Free trade multiplied.

Sometimes global revolutionary change is not sexy. It's not even computer-driven. Maybe the computer chip spurred globalization, but it was the container ship that made it possible. The idea is to make trade fast, reliable and inexpensive, not just to make the world flat. Containers are like computer chips; they hold lots of stuff in a well-organized fashion. Without the containers, the global transportation network would be running much slower and more costly than it does today. Levinson catalogs a history of shadowy billionaires, entrepreneurs, and a few enlightened governments (the demise of London and New York City ports under much less enlightened leaders is especially painful) that produced a true global revolution. This book is a greater tale of globalization.

I only wish Levinson had included some photographs and more drawings. Some of the technical and industry-specific language can be dry and hard to visualize through verbal descriptions alone.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The shipping container and W. W. Rostow's Stages theory February 11, 2007

By E. Husman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The first thing that struck me about the impact of the shipping container was the public policy impact on it. Before the shipping container, shipping, trucking, and railroading were heavily regulated by the ICC. Rates were set not only according to weight and distance, but also according to contents. Thus, the cost of shipping 1000 pounds of tires would be different than, say, 1000 pounds of grain, and not just because of density differences. This apparently goes back to the complaints made by shippers in the late 19th century, and made sense to regulators in that era. Also, prior to the container, shippers were allowed to charge less than truckers because ships took longer. So if a ship already had a stated rate for, say, wheat, between two ports, truckers were not allowed to charge less (or something like that - Levinson didn't attempt to explain the intricacies of ICC regulation). Further, shipping between American ports was restricted to American flagged ships, and international shipping was heavily regulated and subsidized - to qualify for the subsidy, you had to use American built ships, and the subsidy supposedly helped make up for the more expensive American crew. One final government involvement in the era just prior to the shipping container's introduction: many of the ships currently in use in 1956 were WWII surplus ships, built on the cheap and available for next to nothing. It was relatively easy to get into the business, as very little capital was required, and ships could ply from port to port picking up freight as they went.

Enter the shipping container, 1956.

But wait: the container requires different infrastructure. The story of the shipping container is also the story of ports where governments chose to support the companies investing in the container. In New York City, the story is governed by the decisions of the Port of New York Authority (now the Port Authority of New York), which was looking to expand its bureaucratic territory. The piers on the New York side had all the business they could want and politicians to defend that turf. The only reason they remained viable was the fact that the ICC required railroads to charge the same for freight delivered on either side of the port, in effect a requirement to throw in the trans-Hudson part of the journey for free. That was not trivial, since it involved either removing freight from trains and loading it on barges, crossing, and then re-loading into warehouses to wait for a ship.

Much of the history revolves around boy genius Malcom (not Malcolm, he dropped the second l to differentiate from his father) McLean, who started in the trucking business. Shipping something from a factory via truck to a railroad and then (via truck again) to a port, loading it on a ship, and reversing the process at the far end cost plenty. It cost time in transit, storage, and management; it cost labor at each change of mode; it was extremely expensive because of pilferage and breakage because of the frequent handling and the subsequent insurance; and of course the shipping cost money. Malcom realized the problem and the potential money to be made from rationalizing the shipping process.

The first container ships required their own cranes because standard dock cranes were not capable of lifting the containers, much less taking advantage of their standardization and the potential savings in ship loading times. Thereafter, however, the cranes became part of the port infrastructure, along with rail sidings, truck terminals, deeper and wider ports, and computer controls. The industry, in other words, became more capital intensive, and some of that capital came from state and local governments. Those who made the commitment, such as the Port Authority in New Jersey and Port Elizabeth, became the winners, while those who didn't, such as New York City, did not.

The government did not only take sides in the wars between technologies and shipping companies. As it became clear that automation was going to cost not only cushy jobs, but real ones too, the various unions found themselves at odds not only with shippers, but with governments as well. The City of Los Angeles chose sides when longshoreman at first refused to unload Matson's shipping container ships; the city threatened to take over the port and make their jobs civil service, prevented by law from striking. The Federal government stepped in repeatedly on the side of shippers against the East Coast union strikes. Eventually, the Longshoreman's unions on both coasts struck deals with shippers, trading generous contributions to retirement and unemployment funds in return for acceptance of the technology and more productive work rules. I'm not sure which side I come down on in that dispute: yes, there were aspects of the trade that sound cushy, such as rules that allowed each of the two teams working a ship to take a half day off with pay, and the day laborer aspect meant that senior union members could work or take the day off as they desired. On the other hand, the corrupt day labor culture enabled organized crime and allowed rampant pilferage to persist, not to mention the fact that jobs were described as incredibly dangerous and literally back breaking. In the old paradigm, workers had to live in slums near the docks to make themselves available; today, the crane operators are guaranteed a regular 40-hour-per-week job, and can afford to live anywhere, but have to get permission to take off. In any event, government was neither impartial referee nor friend of labor in these struggles.

So this ends up being a very complex story in which government starts out standing against change in the status quo that had persisted since roughly the 1920s, and then steps in to tip the playing field toward the shipping container. Levinson argues that the shipping container may not have been the only factor, but it certainly was *a* factor in accelerating the globalization of the economy. Before the shipping container, it was extraordinarily expensive to ship anything overseas; today, it may be less expensive to ship goods overseas by rail and ship than across the state by truck. Remove time and distance as factors or advantages, and suddenly labor costs become the more important factor.

Two final factors radically altered the trajectory of shipping. The first was Viet Nam. The Army suddenly found itself in a situation where it needed lots of supplies shipped in to a place with no infrastructure or railroads. McLean was the man on the spot, winning the contract by offering to build all of the necessary port infrastructure. The remarkable increase in efficiency forced the federal government into the pro-container camp, but also had an unexpected effect. With the Army picking up the ship's entire journey, westbound and eastbound, but only shipping freight west, this left Malcom with a *pure* profit opportunity: ships returning from Asia in the late 1960s with no cargo. A stop in Japan for loads of televisions and automobiles solved that "problem". Incidentally, by rationalizing shipping by making it predictable and fast, the container contributed to the development of the inventory-free manufacturing method of Just In Time.

The other final factor was the phasing out of the WWII surplus ships and the phasing in of dedicated container ships in the middle of the first oil embargo era. The shipping industry thus completed the transition from labor-intensive to capital-intensive. The enormous ships, some of which no longer fit in the Panama Canal, have to keep moving just to keep paying for their own financing. The cost of shipping plummeted, and the size of ships continues to expand. The Molucca Straits have overtaken the Panama Canal as the limiting factor on size.

Because of the plummet in shipping costs, the resulting increase in dependence on shipping, the pressures of the oil embargoes, and the changes in finance and capital requirements, the shipping industries were "deregulated" in the late 1970s. That deregulation was, of course, not complete. Levinson notes some exceptions, and I found that some of the rules were still in effect when I tried to ship something to Hawai'i a few years back.

Marc Levinson cites W. W. Rostow's "Stages of Development" argument early in the book regarding the importance of the railroad to American and English development, noting that the container is a modern equivalent in global development. Rostow in fact made two claims: one, that the railroad was essential, and two, that government investments were also crucial. Levinson's history of the shipping container would seem to support Rostow's claim. Many of the Asian Tiger economies - Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore - invested heavily in port infrastructure to bring the shipping container to their shores; they were literal cargo cults. To the extent that it worked, they have reaped the benefits.

But Levinson provides some counterexamples. England adapted to the shipping container very poorly, and to the extent that they did, it was because of a private port at Felixstowe; England has arguably done quite well for itself in the past 30 years despite missing both of the Rostovian requirements. Further, much of the investment in American ports was private, though government has also played a role. Finally, the Rostow argument only makes sense when you accept that people are unequivocally better off when they adopt capital intensity. Yes, the increase in measurable wealth is notable, but I am curious about the intangibles and the change in quality of life, pace, direct control of one's life that result from acceptance of the modern.

This book hits somewhere in between detailed Fogelian economic history and story-telling, so I gave it 4 rather than 5 stars. Read more ›

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deserves a wider audience than it will get November 23, 2006

By Harry Eagar VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

It's hard now to imagine a world without marine shipping containers, but the first one was loaded onto a ship, the Ideal-X, just 50 years ago. Precisely, on April 26, 1956, in Newark, N.J.

It turned the world upside down. It probably had as much to do with the success of Waikiki as the jet airliner, introduced in 1960.

The story has a hero, Malcom McLean, and it plays out, for him and for many others, as tragedy.

In "The Box," Marc Levinson makes business history read like a novel. Well, almost.

Like many simple, everyday things, the shipping container is more complicated than it looks. Just how do you design a steel box that can hold 20 tons but also has to be picked up without being touched by human hands and moved from ship to truck in less than a minute?

McLean, a North Carolina boy who founded a trucking empire in the days of heavy regulation in order to save $3, took the plunger's approach. In the Pacific, Matson Navigation Co. was also interested in converting from expensive breakbulk cargo handling, but it took the systems approach.

McLean beat Matson by two years, but Matson is still around (as the principal subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc.), while McLean's SeaLand survives today only as a subsidiary (a very large one) of a Danish business that didn't exist until 1973.

McLean did not imagine he was going to restructure the world economy, but his idea did that, which is why this book deserves a wider audience than business histories usually get.

The container killed off New York and London as important shipping ports. New York City now handles only a little more cargo each year than Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia, which did not exist in 1990. Most of Britain's international trade now moves through Felixstowe.

Since most of the cost of moving a container comes while it's passing through a port, shipping costs are not materially affected no matter how long the at-sea leg is made. Hence, globalization.

The cheap labor of China was always there, it just wasn't accessible before McLean.

Although "The Box" barely refers to Hawaii, it is an obvious conclusion that a resort like Waikiki, which imports nearly everything except aloha, could not have offered cheap vacations to middle class American families if ocean transportation costs had remained as high as they were in the '50s.

Besides different business approaches on the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts, the two oceans featured vastly different reactions by unions to the problem of adopting dock labor to containers.

In the Atlantic, the International Longshoreman's Association was antagonistic. The approach was suicidal, for its members and for their communities.

In the Pacific, commie bogeyman Harry Bridges forced conciliation on his reluctant membership, saving the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and opening the gates to a boom in Southern California.

Bridges, long dead, remains a name that American rightwingers use to scare the children into good behavior. If Republicans understood economics, they'd have built a statue to him in every port (except San Francisco, which did not benefit from containers because of its awkward railroad connections) in western America and Canada.

Levinson, a one-time journalist, knows how to write a book that can be read with pleasure. And profit.