The Box by Marc Levinson

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. 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.--From publisher description.

International trade and logistics is something that's always fascinated me. Partly because my father was involved with sailing during the break-bulk era, mostly on the great lakes. Partly it's because I grew up in an era after manufacturing had mostly moved overseas. So, I've always been interested in shipping containers, and the impact they had on the world. This book helps give me context to that transition.

The book is a fascinating glimpse at how all this started in the 1960's, and the growing pains needed to bring the rest of the world onboard with the idea. Like most technological and ideological revolutions, it was fought by certain entrenched powers (existing shipping companies, railroads, truckers, unions) but when this experiment in optimization resulted in massive cost and time savings, there was no stopping it. As a result, our entire world changed, and Levinson walks us through just what made that possible. The book does a great job exploring the history of this transformation, even while getting occasionally bogged down with brief cost comparisons or standards analysis. I had no idea who Malcolm McLean was or how he ushered in this new era, but now, more than ever, I believe Containerization may have been one of the biggest advancements of the 20th century.

A good example of a great book suffering from poor editing. There are parts where it wants to be a history book, parts when it fantasizes about future, parts where it's focused on global economy, parts when it wants to be an investigative journal,... it's a mess. But the overall story is indeed super interesting - how such a “trivial” invention changed the global trade forever and in ways no one could ever imagine.

So I recommend it, but feel free to skip chapters.