It's the 50th birthday of the shipping container this month. Marc Levinson has a new book for the occasion. In it he argues that the shipping container permanently changed the economic landscape and was instrumental in turning emerging Asian economies into trading powers.
Michael Mandel isn't convinced. He wants data to back up the claim--data that is lacking in Levinson's book. I put my 2 cents in on the comments over there. I just finished posting a 2nd comment that is awaiting approval in which I answer Mandel's skepticism that the container was a disruptive innovation. (He thinks it was an "incremental process improvement.") I think it would suffice to say that there wouldn't need to be a World Trade Center in cities like Denver, Kansas City, and St. Louis, if it were not for some form of standardized intermodal shipping.
I have not read the book, but have read comments and reviews about it. I plan to put it at the top of my list of things to read. Virginia Postrel blogged about it a while back. She also mentions the regulatory system, which was also crucial to the expansion of intermodal transport. How quickly we forget.
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