{"title":"Books by Marc Levinson","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780691170817","title":"The Box – How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger – Second Edition with a new chapter by the author","description":"In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about. But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential.   Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe. Published in hardcover on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. Now with a new chapter, The Box tells the dramatic story of how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur turned containerization from an impractical idea into a phenomenon that transformed economic geography, slashed transportation costs, and made the boom in global trade possible.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56293531943285,"sku":"9780691170817","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780691170817_f60e8492-1016-4025-9412-2baf3ea2d7d0.jpg?v=1786014868"},{"product_id":"9780691227092","title":"Outside the Box – How Globalization Changed from Moving Stuff to Spreading Ideas","description":"From the acclaimed author of The Box, a new history of globalization that shows us how to navigate its futureGlobalization has profoundly shaped the world we live in, yet its rise was neither inevitable nor planned. It is also one of the most contentious issues of our time. While it may have made goods less expensive, it has also sent massive flows of money across borders and shaken the global balance of power. Outside the Box offers a fresh and lively history of globalization, showing how it has evolved over two centuries in response to changes in demographics, technology, and consumer tastes.   Marc Levinson, the acclaimed author of The Box, tells the story of globalization through the people who eliminated barriers and pursued new ways of doing business. He shows how the nature of globalization changed dramatically in the 1980s with the creation of long-distance value chains. This new type of economic relationship shifted manufacturing to Asia, destroying millions of jobs and devastating industrial centers in North America, Europe, and Japan. Levinson describes how improvements in transportation, communications, and computing made international value chains possible, but how globalization was taken too far because of large government subsidies and the systematic misjudgment of risk by businesses. As companies began to account properly for the risks of globalization, cross-border investment fell sharply and foreign trade lagged long before Donald Trump became president and the coronavirus disrupted business around the world.   In Outside the Box, Levinson explains that globalization is entering a new era in which moving stuff will matter much less than moving services, information, and ideas.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56294397673845,"sku":"9780691227092","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780691227092_d23aefb2-0e6e-4fa9-bf83-6afa0c7b42ca.jpg?v=1786014668"},{"product_id":"9781788160346","title":"The Economist Guide To Financial Markets 7th Edition","description":"Extensively revised to reflect the dramatic shifts and consolidation of the financial markets, the seventh edition of this highly regarded book provides a clear and incisive guide to a complex world  that even those who work in it often find hard to understand.With  chapters on the markets that deal with money, foreign exchange,  equities, bonds, commodities, financial futures, options and other  derivatives, it looks at why these markets exist, how they work and who  trades in them, and it gives a run-down of the factors that affect  prices and rates.Business history is littered with disasters  that occurred because people involved their firms with financial  instruments they didn't properly understand. If they had had this book  they might have avoided their mistakes. For anyone wishing to understand  financial markets, there is no better guide.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56306680463733,"sku":"9781788160346","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781788160346_ced50e83-d5cd-40fe-a612-a9cf8f031c28.jpg?v=1786026884"},{"product_id":"extraordinary-time","title":"An Extraordinary Time","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eStrategy+Business\u003c\/i\u003e Book of the Year.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eStagnant wages. Feeble growth figures. An angry, disillusioned public. The early 1970s witnessed the arrival of the problems that define the twenty-first century.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eAn Extraordinary Time\u003c\/i\u003e, Marc Levinson investigates how the oil crisis of the 1970s marked a radical turning point in global economics: and paved the way for the political and financial troubles of the present. Tracing the remarkable transformation of the global economy in the years after World War II, Levinson explores how decades of spectacular economic growth ended almost overnight – giving way to an era of uncertainty and political extremism that we are still grappling with. Above all, Levinson shows that we must understand the economic disaster of the 1970s if we want to overcome the problems we face today. By focusing on a pivotal but often overlooked moment in the twentieth century, \u003ci\u003eAn Extraordinary Time\u003c\/i\u003e offers a crucial and timely reappraisal of our age. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘A smoothly written account of the US and the world economy during the 1970s.’ \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘A valuable antidote to all passionately held economic ideologies.’ \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Provocative . . . Levinson reminds us how mesmerising the post-war boom really was.’ \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e‘Lucid, well-paced, and entwined with vivid sketches of economists, central bankers, and politicians.’ \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57490267668853,"sku":"9781847941916","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781847941916.jpg?v=1786442154"},{"product_id":"the-ups-man","title":"The UPS Man","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLonglist, FT and Standard Chartered Business Book of the Year Award 2026\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow a little-known executive revolutionized the delivery business \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e James E. Casey was a most improbable revolutionary. Shy and soft-spoken, in his day he was all but unknown to the public at large. Drawing little attention to himself, he laid the foundation of an industry that is fundamental to the modern world economy—the industry that manages businesses' long-distance supply chains and allows consumers to obtain almost anything from anywhere with just a credit card and a couple of days' patience. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eThe UPS Man\u003c\/i\u003e, Marc Levinson provides the first-ever biography of the self-taught executive who started a bicycle messenger service in 1907 and built it into a giant of modern logistics. Casey was associated with United Parcel Service for seventy-six years, introducing innovation after innovation into the stodgiest of industries as UPS conquered the retail delivery market, then reshaped itself into the first company able to collect packages from hundreds of thousands of senders and deliver them when promised to recipients far away, and then changed itself yet again to move parcels around the globe. That more than three hundred thousand packages are delivered somewhere in the world every minute of every day is a monument to Casey's accomplishments. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e While Casey was an inspiring leader, he was also a ferocious competitor and a demanding boss. Under his leadership, UPS frequently acted in ways that it prefers not to include in its corporate mythology. Some of these actions were dubious. Others were flat-out illegal. Certainly some of these actions might not make current employees proud, yet were indispensable to UPS's emergence as a powerful force in freight transportation. Drawing on previously neglected sources, \u003ci\u003eThe UPS Man \u003c\/i\u003eoffers a nuanced portrait of an entrepreneur and executive whose obsession with small parcels still affects our lives today.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57504895304053,"sku":"9781479848386","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781479848386.jpg?v=1787750116"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-marc-levinson.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}