We are currently reading another interesting book dealing with the global economy and cheap oil that combined to revolutionize the world's transportation business and altered the history of our economic development. The book is called The Box: "How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" by Marc Levinson. This book is essentially a history of the evolution of the mundane shipping container (just a large metal box) that brings us exotic foods and inexpensive consumer products from around the world. Much like the books, Cod: "A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World" and "Salt: A World History", both by Mark Kurlansky that document the world altering impact of simple things like a fish and grains of a chemical product, the shipping container is a remarkably simple device that also changed the course of the world's economy.
If oil is no longer available, or cheap, will developed economies be capable of getting cheap foodstuffs and industrial and consumer products that have contributed so much to their economic development and high living standards? The answer from Messrs. Rubin and Steiner is: No!
The two authors have the same theme, how Americans will have to give up traveling, abandon eating foods that come from great distances away and find new ways to work. These books, listed on the non fiction book lists, amaze me because they truly are fictional works. Admittedly they are based on reasonable premises, but they are largely speculation about how the world of the future will unfold.....read the entire article.
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