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.
