The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger - Second Edition with a new chapter by the author

by Marc Levinson

The globalization of the late twentieth century took on quite a different character. International trade was no longer dominated by essential raw materials or finished products. Fewer than one-third of the containers imported through Southern California in 1998 contained consumer goods. Most of the rest were links in global supply chains, carrying what economists call “intermediate goods,” factory inputs that have been partially processed in one place and will be processed further someplace else. The majority of the metal boxes moving around the world hold not televisions and dresses, but industrial products such as synthetic resins, engine parts, wastepaper, screws, and, yes, Barbie’s hair.