The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, Second Edition with a new chapter by the author Paperback – 5 April 2016

Really interesting book on the history of the outwardly humble shipping container, and how it transformed shipping and the global economy with interesting comparisons throughout to traditional breakbulk shipping.

Who knew the development of the shipping container was so interesting and so important?The author spins a great story of the evolution of shipping. In days gone by, boats would come into harbour with all sorts of stuff randomly placed on board. Unloading took days. Many workers were employed unloading items. This offered both advantages (everyone could see what exactly was onboard reducing the chance of illegal goods) and disadvantages (everyone could see what was onboard so people often stole valuable items).The development of the shipping container was excellent for reducing shipping costs and times. It was a primary driver on why your t-shirts and sweaters are now made in Asia rather than closer to home. The shipping costs went from dollars to a few cents. Not only have jobs been lost in the country but also in the harbour. Men are no longer needed to do the tough work down the docks. Unions were formed to try and stop the wave of efficiencies but to little effect. All the unloading of containers is now done by robotic cranes.With the faster increase in offloading comes more and more containers of which only around 10% can be screened. The container has made the smuggling, of goods, drugs and even people more likely.The book is incredibly well researched and indeed well written. Its possibly a bit longer than one would want to spend reading about shipping containers but it has clearly been a really important development worthy of such a decent book.

With no real prior interest in container shipping (apart from Season 2 of The Wire), I came across this book and was curious enough to read it. The story is really compelling and Levinson's fascination with the topic is contagious. If you're like me, you will be scouring youtube for video footage of container ports.... It's a fascinating portrait of how innovation happens and why it's often a long and messy process with failure along the way. Rightly cited at length in Matt Ridley's latest book on innovation

The Box is a great book regarding the influence of the container on the modern economy and gives a detailed understanding of the world before the container, the transition and the consequences. It is a good read, but requires that you are interested in shipping since it can be a heavy in certain chapters. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand global trade and globalization.

This book makes a good case for the fundamental changes that containerisation has made to world shipping and trade. Before the introduction of containers international trade was a mess of legislation and restrictive practises by dock workers, and middle men accompanied labyrinthine bureaucracy, the description of which beggars belief. Although the writer gives a comprehensive history of the transport industry there are some sections which are a little hard to wade through because there is an overwhelming level of detail and one wonders whether the reader needs to know the blow by blow hammer of the history of labour relations of US dockside affairs.

I bought this book for my partner who has a haulage company. He could not put it down, he loved it. He has now taken it to his father to read.

A very interesting read however it is really a history of the American container revolution. There is very little mentioned about world operators -other than how the relate to America. I think the word Maersk is mentioned only once in the whole book!

My father -a hard man to please- absolutely loved this book. He said it was very full of useful details but easy to read. High praise indeed if you knew my father.