| The Box How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger | 
 enlarge | Author: Marc Levinson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Category: Book
List Price: £8.95
Buy New: £4.36
You Save: £4.59 (51%)
New (35) Used (6) from £4.35
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 75249
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0691136408
Dewey Decimal Number: 387.5442
EAN: 9780691136400
ASIN: 0691136408
Publication Date: February 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW - ***Delivery usually * 2 - 3 * working days - From Aphrohead of SOUTHPORT, Lancs, UK *** . Priority Airmail used Worldwide on International orders. Thanks from all at Aphrohead.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Innovation isn't certain - even with a winning product May 20, 2008
I liked this book a lot. Its a history of the shipping container but it draws in much more. As an aside there is a good account of ports and unionised port labour - and how that influenced the development of the container.
What is most striking for a technology that has come to dominate this mode of transport is:
* how conservative the industry was at the outset and how much it resisted the container
* how quickly the technology changed during the early days - ship sizes, container size, the power of ships, etc.
* innovative players often saw the container as a way to improve their advantage. The same process meant that dominant players weren't (initially) interested in the container.
Well written and well researched. The evolving story kept me reading in a way that many business books don't achieve.
How the world got smaller and "the docks" disappeared November 18, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a good book to explain how a simple obvious invention changed the world, against the massed ranks of opposition of everybody from rail companies, trade unions and politicians. It changed the geography of every port, and hence most cities, by dooming "the docks" as they had been for centuries to history and eventually turning decaying ex-working class communities into the new location for offices, shops and above all trendy flats.
It means that in Dubai you can have raspberries from California, tomatoes from Spain, beef from South Africa and almost anything else from China and all at reasonable prices.
All this took place in thirty years and nobody, until now, has explained how and why it happened. This book shows how even a great idea must have visionaries to fight for it to succeed and sometimes these people pay a high price for their ideas.
It takes a bit of effort in places to read all the tedious disputes but it well worth staying the course and understand the effects of the many changes that the container brought to all of us.
 It does the job well July 23, 2006
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
I bought this book as I had observed the progress of the shipping container with interest and wanted to know the background. This book told me that background and corrected some false assumptions.
I had assumed progress was straightforward only to learn that there was a lot of opposition and politics held it back for a long time. I also assumed that it was easy to make money as it seemed such a winner. In fact after a few years the inventor faced common business obstacles such as supply and demand getting out of balance and the oil price changing violently.
I assumed that there was only one size when in fact there were many standard sizes though economics narrowed the range in practice.
I saw there is another book on the same subject Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World (Hardcover)
by Brian J. Cudahyon on Amazon at the time I bought mine.
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