I knew that the history of containerization would show itself to be a far more absorbing topic than readers imagined, and I figured that economists and logistics specialists might be intrigued by my argument that tumbling transport costs were critical in opening the way to what we now call globalization.

The supply experts “had never had grease under their fingernails,” a top army general groused, and from a distance of thousands of miles they had no actual knowledge of the rapidly changing situation in the field. Nor were they familiar with Vietnam.

Experimentation began anew after the war. Amphibious landing ships were recycled as “roll on–roll off” vessels to transport trucks along the coast, improving on techniques originally developed to land troops and tanks in over-the-beach invasions.

“Unless a container terminal is available in Hong Kong to serve these ships the trading position of the Colony will be affected detrimentally.” And no government anywhere was more aggressive in preparing for the container age than Singapore’s.

Instead, Antwerp should use its great resource, land around the docks, to attract shipping-related businesses that would do more in Antwerp than just land cargo. As a port executive explained the new rules, “It’s not a game about tons, it’s a game about employment and diversification, and added value creation.”2 Such talk reflected a dramatic chang

The equation was simple: the bigger the port, the bigger the vessels it could handle and the faster it could empty them, reload them, and send them back out to sea. Bigger ports were likely to have deeper berths, more and faster cranes, better technology to keep track of all the boxes, and better road and rail services to move freight in and out. T

Malcom McLean’s genius was acknowledged unanimously: almost everyone save the dockworkers’ unions thought that putting freight into containers was a brilliant concept. The idea that the container would cause a revolution in shipping, though, seemed more than a little far-fetched. At best, the container was expected to help ships recover a tiny shar

The Box, I hope, has contributed to public understanding that inadequate port, road, and rail infrastructure can cause economic harm by raising the cost of moving freight.

the McLeans understood that the easiest way to control costs was to get employees involved. Holding down insurance and repair bills, for example, meant having safety-conscious drivers. Novices were trained by being paired with senior drivers on the run from Winston-Salem to Atlanta. The senior driver got a bonus of one month’s pay if a man he had t