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Fifty years ago—on April 26, 1956—the freighter Ideal X steamed from Berth 26 in Port Newark, New Jersey. Flying the flag of the Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, she set out for Houston with an unusual cargo: 58 trailer trucks lashed to her top deck. But they weren’t trucks—they were steel containers removed from their running gear, waiting to be lifted onto empty truck beds when Ideal X reached Texas. She docked safely, and a revolution was launched—not only in shipping, but in the way the world trades. Today, the more than 200 million containers shipped every year are the lifeblood of the new global economy. They sit stacked on thousands of “box boats” that grow more massive every year. In this fascinating book, transportation expert Brian Cudahy provides a vivid, fast-paced account of the container-ship revolution—from the maiden voyage of the Ideal X to the entrepreneurial vision and technological breakthroughs that make it possible to ship more goods more cheaply than every before. Cudahy tells this complex story easily, starting with Malcom McLean, Pan-Atlantic’s owner who first thought about loading his trucks on board. His line grew into the container giant Sea-Land Services, and Cudahy charts its dramatic evolution into Maersk Sealand, the largest container line in the world. Along the way, he provides a concise, colorful history of world shipping—from freighter types to the fortunes of steamship lines—and explores the spectacular growth of global trade fueled by the mammoth ships and new seaborne lifelines connecting Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Masterful maritime history, Box Boats shows how fleets of these ungainly ships make the modern world possible—with both positive and negative effects. It’s also a tale of an historic home port, New York, where old piers lie silent while 40-foot steel boxes of toys and televisions come ashore by the thousands, across the bay in New Jersey.
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(4.13)
Wikipedia in English (24)
3
The success of Sea-Land did not go unnoticed and before long other shipping and ship building entities around the world entered the container shipping business. In the chapters following the rise of Sea-Land Mr. Cudahy details the rise, transition, and in some cases the fall/merging of Sea-Land and its competitors. In these chapters the author provides a mix of information about corporate finance and strategy, technical innovations, and geo-political issues that impacted the container industry.
In the final chapter of the book the author points out that, because his is a history of an economic entity that was still evolving and growing in 2006 (as it is today), there really can be no final chapter. Instead of a summation of events the author uses the final chapter to speculate on possible future trends, gives details of plans that were underway across to globe to accommodate even larger container ships, and provided information about theoretical calculations made by ship building firms concerning aspects of possible future container ship construction.
The book was published one year before Panama announced the beginning of construction of new locks to permit post-Panamax ships (ships that are too large to pass through the 1914 locks) to transit the canal. However, the author does speculate as to what such a change might mean (if it were to occur) to the container handling industry (ports, overland rail shipment, ship size, etc.). It is interesting to see that many of his speculations match what we have seen and are seeing in the aftermath of the opening of the new Panama Canal locks.
The book provides numerous tables which summarize all manner of container ship statistics (ship names, tonnage, ownership, ownership transfer, etc.) and these are effectively integrated into the text in the various chapters where they are presented.
Overall, the book does a very good job of balancing the presentation of technical, financial, and historical information. The balance is such that I think the book has equal appeal to the detail freak as well as to anyone who wishes to gain a general understanding of the history of the first 50 years of the container business.
(Text Length - 254 pages, Total Length - 338 pages. Includes several appendices, 20 pages of photographs, a bibliography, and an index) (Book Dimensions inches L x W x H – 6.5 x 1.25 x 9.25) (