Customer Reviews
Innovation isn't certain - even with a winning product - By: Mr. Joe Merieux, 20 May 2008 
I liked this book a lot. Its a history of the shipping container but it drawsin much more. As an aside there is a good account of ports & unionised port labour - & 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 & 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) interestedin the container.
Well written & well researched. The evolving story kept me readingin a way that many business books don't achieve.
How the world got smaller and "the docks" disappeared - By: Dusty Bill, 18 Nov 2007 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 & politicians. It changed the geography of every port, & hence most cities, by dooming "the docks" as they had been for centuries to history & eventually turning decaying ex-working class communities into the new location for offices, shops & above all trendy flats.
It means thatin Dubai you can have raspberries from California, tomatoes from Spain, beef from South Africa & almost anything else from China & all at reasonable prices.
All this took placein thirty years & nobody, until now, has explained how & why it happened. This book shows how even a great idea must have visionaries to fight for it to succeed & sometimes these people pay a high price for their ideas.
It takes a bit of effortin places to read all the tedious disputes but it well worth staying the course & understand the effects of the many changes that the container brought to all of us.
It does the job well - By: Mr. Brian P. Gilbert, 23 Jul 2006 
I bought this book as I had observed the progress of the shipping container with interest & wanted to know the background. This book told me that background & corrected some false assumptions.
I had assumed progress was straightforward only to learn that there was a lot of opposition & 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 & demand getting out of balance & the oil price changing violently.
I assumed that there was only one size whenin fact there were many standard sizes though economics narrowed the rangein 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.
