book about history of the modern shipping container

[southwestforests]

Finally got around to getting this book about history of the modern shipping container.
Procrastinated for so long it is now a new edition with an additional chapter!
Arrived several days ago.
Have read first several chapters and scattered bits throughout.

Looks like the change to standardized containerized shipping had a profound effect on both the structure of societies and the global economy.
As in it allowed there to be a global economy.

[FRD]

Wow!, who knew that there was so much to know about shipping containers!

[southwestforests]

And it turns out there is far more you can't know about the history of shipping because there are no records which have been kept, or which were ever created to begin with.

[Damraska]

I would argue that the 'Global Economy' started in the second century BCE with the establishment of the Silk Road. Many centuries before that, long and elaborate trade networks already existed. For example, Bronze Age civilizations in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean where fueled by Tin shipped in from places as far away as Afghanistan (the main source of Tin in the ancient world) and the British Isles.

The first standardized shipping containers were Amphora, a kind of pottery vessel invented in Neolithic times. For example, the Romans used various standardized Amphora for shipping olive oil, wine, and all sorts of valuable commodities. They even treated the inside of some Amphora with resin producing a sealed vessel very similar to a modern soda can.

Modern shipping containers most certainly speed things up but they only represent the current pinnacle of a technological evolutionary process that began in ancient times. Efforts to standardize coinage, weights, measures, and yes, shipping containers, have happened numerous times in the past. I dare say that, 500 years from now, as goods get shipped across the Solar System on a regular basis, someone in that future time will declare the shipping containers of that era the first 'truly global shipping container'. :D

This subject interests me because I have been sketching Solar System bulk freighters since June, trying to work out how such ships might work. There are a lot of interesting problems to solve!

[Kevin WS]

I am sure you will enjoy the book!

I bought the book some time back - it's an interesting read, but not a quick one!

I was suprised also see how thick it is. I bought the Kindle version.

Interesting enough there was development locally here of a "mini mini" container, which really took off and was actually quite revolutionary. But sadly the demise of the railway freight infrastructure took the impetus out of the business and concept, although it is still used by the road freight industry - but not to any degree of scale anymore.