The Box

Marc Levinson is an economist and historian specializing in business and finance. He was formerly finance and economics editor of The Economist, worked as an economist at a New York bank, and served as senior fellow for international business at the Council on Foreign Relations. For more information, check out his website at www.marclevinson.net.

出版者:Princeton University Press

作者:Marc Levinson

页数:400

出版时间:2006-03-20

价格:USD 24.95

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780691123240

图书标签:经济集装箱物流经济学历史美国商业英文原著

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.</p>

Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. It recounts how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur, Malcom McLean, turned containerization from an impractical idea into a massive industry that slashed the cost of transporting goods around the world.</p>

But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential.</p>

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.</p>

读后感

提及集装箱，人们应该不会陌生。在港口和码头上能够看到数量众多的集装箱，里面装载着来自全国各地乃至全球各地的货物。但如果提出集装箱的前世今生，它到底是因为什么出现的，它到底有着什么意义，它是如何改变世界的，又给未来的世界带来什么启示。这些问题估计很多人会觉得...  

马克麦克莱恩首先创建的是自己家族掌管的卡车运输公司。在经营卡车公司时，麦克莱恩便通过多种方式试图绕开政府机构对价格的管控，并提供具有竞争力的运输价格。 卡车运输的发展使得高速公路的交通拥堵情况日益严重，从而降低了卡车运输的效率。为了突破陆基运输的基础设施瓶...  

用户评价

今天的人们已经很难想象这个丑陋的铝制二十英尺标准的大盒子是如何深刻而不可逆转地改变了我们日常生活的每一个角落。标准化大规模的工业生产并没有在新时代失去他的魅力，反而以一种更加无可阻挡的趋势席卷全球。书中提到纽约港的衰落和新泽西伊丽莎白港的崛起时真是慨叹万分，站在风口的人，永远永远不要逆风走下去 #美国的工会真心就是毒瘤癌细胞

bill gates推荐的七本书之一

三小时的seminar迅速略过整本书，后来发现原来每一章都是讲相同事件的不同方面，而引发讨论关于未来与过去的思考、对灾难的预测和经济发展利弊性的思考，仍难以下定论。3.5 （BTW 我的时间线固化思维太严重了，提炼概念的能力不足..）

201404，Its a history book. Yes, HISTORY!!!

我要找malcolm maclean的传记来看。码头工会虽然百般阻挠，但是完全挡不住技术创新（当然你也可以说是创新的资本家为降低成本用尽一些办法）前进的脚步啊！想到1453年，穆罕默德靠着船坚炮利进攻君士坦丁堡兵临城下，城里的居民和守卫在干啥呢？跪在地上祈祷啊……咳咳扯远了，商业故事真的会削弱俺对于资本以外的力量所剩无几的信心啊～_～