Marc Levinson.
The Box: how the shipping container made the world smaller and the world economy bigger: 2nd edn.
Princeton University Press. 2016
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 reshaped manufacturing.
But the container didn’t just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money,
years of high-stakes bargaining, and delicate negotiation on standards.
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.