[darnton]

The Box: How The Shipping Container Made The World Smaller And The World Economy Bigger - Marc Levinson.

There are so many facets to this book. It's the story of Malcom McLean's drive to make containerisation a reality. It's a history of the global economy since WWII. It goes into detail about labour relations on the docks and about how changes in shipping change the fortunes of cities.

One stand out chapter details the logistics of getting military materiel into Vietnam before and after containerisation and then McLean's idea that there was no point bringing all those empty boxes back - might as well stop off at Japan and pick up some transistor radios.

This book is well worth your time.