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

Description: 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. 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. Published in hardcover on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. Now with a new chapter, The Box tells the dramatic story of how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur turned containerization from an impractical idea into a phenomenon that transformed economic geography, slashed transportation costs, and made the boom in global trade possible.

Price: 21.08 USD

Location: East Hanover, NJ

End Time: 2024-11-05T02:51:52.000Z

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Return shipping will be paid by: Buyer

All returns accepted: Returns Accepted

Item must be returned within: 60 Days

Refund will be given as: Money back or replacement (buyer's choice)

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EAN: 9780691170817

UPC: 9780691170817

ISBN: 9780691170817

MPN: N/A

Edition: 2

Book Title: Box : How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger - Second Edition with a New Chapter by the Author

Number of Pages: 544 Pages

Language: English

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Year: 2016

Item Height: 1.4 in

Topic: Industrial Design / Packaging, Commerce, Industries / Transportation

Features: Revised

Illustrator: Yes

Genre: Technology & Engineering, Business & Economics

Item Weight: 17 Oz

Item Length: 8 in

Author: Marc Levinson

Item Width: 5.3 in

Format: Trade Paperback