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The Box
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger | Marc Levinson
5 posts | 3 read | 4 to read
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.
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vlwelser
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Thanks for the tag @Buechersuechtling
#WondrousWednesday
@Eggs

1. This is pretty shallow, but I like jewelry.
2. Basically everyone in my family reads. And it was the only thing teachers ever found that could get me to sit still and not talk.
3. I like that it's different every day. And I get to do math. But I'm currently unemployed due to covid. If any of you need someone that's good at logistics let me know. 😂

Eggs Jewelry isn‘t shallow, it‘s necessary self-expression 🤗😂🥳 4y
24 likes1 comment
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Vivlio_Gnosi
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DrexEdit Wow! That actually seems like it would be interesting. I would have never guessed! 😊 5y
Clwojick +1pt 5y
5 likes2 comments
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vlwelser
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Pickpick

I really liked this. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to any of you. Unless the history of shipping containers sounds like it might be your thing. If that's the case, have at it. 💖📚🚢🚛⚓

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Carleneishere
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Got a new desk and office at work! Slowly building up a professional shelf. The Book of Speculation is my fun book for slow days and lunchtime. #shelfie #worklife #museumlife

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vlwelser
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#riotgrams day 10 #booksandcandy This is the at work version. Obviously the bag of jolly ranchers has a nickname #bigbertha and I use it to bribe my coworkers. 1 of these books is from the work library. (Because we have one of those.) And it isn't the one about shipping containers. That sounds like a riddle or a logic puzzle. 💖📚

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