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Few inventions of the twentieth century look as unremarkable as the steel shipping container, yet few have done more to reshape the world economy. Until the 1950s, cargo was loaded onto ships in much the same way it had been for centuries: sacks, barrels and crates were carried aboard one by one by teams of dockworkers. A single vessel could spend a week or more in port, and theft and damage were common. Transport costs were so high that, for many goods, it made little sense to manufacture them far from where they would be sold. The container changed this by turning cargo into a standard unit that could be lifted by crane from a truck or train directly onto a ship and off again at the other end. Loading times fell from days to hours, and the cost of moving goods across oceans dropped dramatically. The full effect, however, depended on agreement as well as engineering. Only when shipping lines, ports and governments adopted common container sizes in the late 1960s could a box packed in one country travel by sea, rail and road through several others without being opened. The consequences went far beyond the docks. Cheap, reliable shipping allowed companies to spread production across continents, buying components wherever they were cheapest, and helped turn coastal cities in East Asia into manufacturing centres. It also cost many traditional port jobs and shifted activity away from old city-centre harbours to vast new terminals.