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

by Marc Levinson (Author)

243 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0691136400

ISBN-10: 0691136408

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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.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Winner of the 2007 Anderson Medal, Society for Nautical Research

Winner of the 2007 Bronze Medal in Finance/Investment/Economics, Independent Publisher Book Awards

Shortlisted for the 2006 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year

Honorable Mention for the 2006 John Lyman Book Award, Science and Technology category, North American Society for Ocean History

One of Financial Times (FT.com) Best Business Books of 2013 (chosen by guest critic Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft)

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)

From the Back Cover

"The continuous decline of ocean shipping costs in the last 40 years is rarely credited for the growth of global trade in contemporary literature. Don't miss this amazing history."--George Stalk, Boston Consulting Group and author ofSurviving the China Riptide

"An excellent piece of work."--Bruce Nelson, Dartmouth College

"This book is dynamite. The experts who tell you the transistor and microchips changed the world are off base. The ugly, unglamorous, little-noticed shipping container has changed the world. Without it, there would be no globalization, no Wal-Mart, maybe even no high-tech. And what looks like low-tech is in fact a breathtaking technological innovation. Marc Levinson's sparkling and authoritative story is great fun to read, but it is spectacular economic history as well."--Peter L. Bernstein, author ofAgainst the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

"Fascinating, informative, wonderfully historicized. This is a terrific untold story."--Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara, and editor ofWal-Mart: the Face of Twenty-First Century Capitalism

"The adoption of the modern shipping container may be a close second to the Internet in the way it has changed our lives. It has made products from every corner of the world commonplace and accessible everywhere. It has dramatically cut the cost of transportation and thereby made outsourcing a significant issue. It has transformed the world's port cities, and more. This book, very nicely written, makes a fascinating set of true stories of an apparently mundane subject, and dramatically illustrates how simple innovations can transform our lives."--William Baumol, Director, Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, author ofThe Free-Market Innovation Machine

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Product details

Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (January 27, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0691136408
ISBN-13: 978-0691136400
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 243 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #9 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Industrial, Manufacturing & Operational Systems > Industrial Design > Packaging
- #41 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Civil & Environmental > Transportation
- #204 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Reference > History

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Fred ForbesTop Contributor: Photography

Probably more than you wanted to know!

October 1, 2017

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You probably never thought much about it, I would bet. Me neither. You know, those big, ugly metal boxes - take them off the ship with specialized cranes, bolt them to a truck or stack them two high on a flat bed train car and get them where they are going. And vice versa. What could be more obvious that needing a standard to build to so all the moving and structural parts function together? Well, it may be common sense in hindsight but to the longshoremen on the piers of New York who used to load and unload cargo, it certainly was nothing they ever wanted. Certainly something the trucking and train lines and competing shipping firms weren't interested in solving.

The book delves into these issues and explores the many ramifications of the evolution of container shipping upon the economic, political and financial impact of the system. Fascinating stuff and I would have rated the book higher but it tends to be dry, repetitive stuff and at times the chapters seemed more like sequential essays than a book. You know it may be a bit too on the scholarly side when your kindle indicates that you are only 60% finished when you finish the last chapter. The remaining 40%? Notes, bibliography, and index. So, looking a for a very thorough examination of the topic? This is your tome.

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Bill Henderson Jr.

Seemingly Boring Subject Turned into Fascinating Story

August 19, 2017

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What a great story! It's hard to appreciate how this boring, ubiquitous thing - the shipping container rapidly crept into every facet of our lives. These things are relatively new but they're everywhere. Levinson's book shows you how the container was developed, how it spread, and what it's used for. You'll learn about the early pioneers and the companies they spawned, some of which are still around. Just as fascinating, Levinson describes the world before "the box" - you'll be surprised how different transportation was in the recent past. There's no moralizing here, he just presents the facts in an objective way and lets you see the world as it is. Levinson comes across as genuinely interested in the subject and it rubs off on the reader. This is a book I've lent to friends as "you've got to read this". Everyone enjoys it. If you are a fan of human ingenuity or the history of engineering, international commerce, shipping, etc, you'll enjoy this book too.

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Mostyn

The shipping container killed Detroit.

July 6, 2014

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I found 'The Box' was absolutely fascinating. The story of the shipping container may have been largely ignored, but it explains so much about the onset of globalisation in late 20th century.

Until the mid 1960s, ocean freight was transported in breakbulk ships; the cargo manually jammed into the ships' holds by teams of longshoremen. The process was laborious and time consuming. Major port cities like New York and London were structured around their docks, with factories near their ports to minimise the costs involved with the multiple handling and warehousing involved in transporting goods.

Then, a few pioneers started trying to move freight in containers. Within a few short decades, containers revolutionised world trade. Containers of goods could be seamlessly moved from a factory, between trucks, trains, and ships to customers. Where once it may have taken months to ship a product from the US to Europe, it can now take less than a week. Global trade skyrocketed!

Nobody predicted the enormous impact that containers were to have on the global economy. Once, firms concentrated their factories in one location to minimise transport costs. With the advent of fast, cheap and reliable container shipping, component manufacture was farmed out around the world to the cheapest supplier. The structures of port cities changed drastically, with whole longshore communities being destroyed, and factories moving to where land was cheap. Of course, countries in Asia soon became major manufacturing powers.

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Mec

The original "Internet of Things"

June 11, 2015

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I enjoy "how stuff works" books and this one delivered!

Container shipping is a business-to-business technology. Few consumers have ever directly sent or received a TEU container. Thus, one of the transformative technologies of the 20th century has gotten relatively little public attention.

The technology itself is straightforward: put a lot of cargo in a large box (20 feet or 40 feet long), seal the box, move the box over the world transportation network (ships, railroads, and trucks), and then un-pack the box at the far end. Among other things, this system cuts down on shrinkage from theft.

The business side is more complicated. Somebody had to design ships that could carry boxes more efficiently. Somebody had to persuade ports to install new container-handling systems. Somebody had to tell a lot of dock workers that their services were no longer needed.

In the end, most of the lower costs flowed through to shippers rather than the companies offering shipping services, That's a good thing.

Levinson's book covers this revolution from several angles. On the down-side, there is no central heart to the book; the closest he comes is following the career of Malcom McLean, although even that narrative thread is interrupted often. On the up-side, the book is meticulously sourced, with many references to original documents from ports in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.

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