The Box

From the authors of The McKinsey Way and Creative Business Strategy, a fascinating account of how the shipping container transformed global trade. In April 1956, a refitted tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning grew an industry that made possible the boom in global trade we now enjoy. The Box tells the dramatic story of how creative innovators collaborated with visionary financiers and key government officials to develop and promote this invention; describes how it swept away old practices in both ocean freight transportation and intermodal freight transport; and sets forth its economic consequences for manufacturers, ports, unions, trucking, and rail industries – as well as for consumers.