This book compiles seven essays concerning changes to merchant shipping over the hundred and fifty years between 1850 and 2000, and spanning a range of countries, with particular focus on Norway, Greece, Japan, and England. The essays are linked by the theme of change: from traditional to modern shipping; in fluctuating cargo demands; from sail to steam; wood to iron; in improvements in communication technologies; in political natures and affiliations; in seafaring skillsets; in the advent of containerisation and advent of globalisation. The overall aim is to construct a solid international context for the merchant shipping industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - primarily to aid a major Norwegian deep-sea merchant marine project. The book contains an introduction that sets out these aims, and seven essays by maritime historians which form part of the international contextual whole, though all can be approached individually.

This book compiles seven essays concerning changes to merchant shipping over the hundred and fifty years between 1850 and 2000, and spanning a range of countries, with particular focus on Norway, Greece, Japan, and England. The essays are linked by the theme of change: from traditional to modern shipping; in fluctuating cargo demands; from sail to steam; wood to iron; in improvements in communication technologies; in political natures and affiliations; in seafaring skillsets; in the advent of containerisation and advent of globalisation. The overall aim is to construct a solid international context for the merchant shipping industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - primarily to aid a major Norwegian deep-sea merchant marine project. The book contains an introduction that sets out these aims, and seven essays by maritime historians which form part of the international contextual whole, though all can be approached individually.

Europe and the Maritime World: A Twentieth-Century History offers a framework for understanding globalization over the past century. Through a detailed analysis of ports, shipping and trading companies whose networks spanned the world, Michael B. Miller shows how a European maritime infrastructure made modern production and consumer societies possible. He argues that the combination of overseas connections and close ties to home ports contributed to globalization. Miller also explains how the ability to manage merchant shipping's complex logistics was central to the outcome of both world wars. He chronicles transformations in hierarchies, culture, identities and port city space, all of which produced a new and different maritime world by the end of the century.

Merchants to Multinationals examines the evolution of multinational trading companies from the eighteenth century to the present day. During the Industrial Revolution, British merchants established overseas branches which became major trade intermediaries and subsequently engaged in foreign direct investment. Complex multinational business groups emerged controlling large investments in natural resources, processing, and services in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. While theories of the firm predict the demise over time of merchant firms, this book identifies the continued resilience of British trading companies despite the changing political and business environments of the twentieth century. Like Japanese trading companies, they 're-invented' themselves in successive generations. The competences of the trading companies resided in their information-gathering, relationship-building, human resource, and corporate governance systems. This book provides a new dimension to the literature on international business through the focus on multinational service firms and its evolutionary approach based on confidential business records.

This book is the founding title in the Grammenos Library. The diversity of the subjects covered is unique and the results of research developed over many years are not only comprehensive, but also have important implications on real life issues in maritime business. The new edition covers a vast number of topics, including: • Shipping Economics and Maritime Nexus • International Seaborne Trade • Economics of Shipping Market and Shipping Cycles • Economics of Shipping Sectors • Issues in Liner Shipping • Economics of Maritime Safety and Seafaring Labour Market • National and International Shipping Policies • Aspects of Shipping Management and Operations• Shipping Investment and Finance • Port Economics and Management • Aspects of International Logistics

"Leon Fink, one of the world's best labor historians, has gone to sea and returned with a powerful yarn about the seafaring workers who built the global economy. Vividly told the breathtaking in scope, Sweatshops at Sea will be remembered as one of the most important histories of our time." Marcus Rediker, author The Slave Ship: A Human History. "Sweatshops at Sea is a masterful history that illuminates the issues of citizenship in a world of porous borders for a workforce that has always been both multinational and multiracial. Leon Fink's thoroughly researched, fascinating book provides readers with a fresh and invigorating perspective on globalization."---Nelson Lichtenstein, director, Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy, University of California, Santa Barbara.

This open access book belongs to the Maritime Business and Economic History strand of the Palgrave Studies in Maritime Economics book series. This volume highlights the contribution of the shipping industry to the transformations in business and society of the postwar era. Shipping was both an example and an engine of globalization and structural change. In turn, the industry experienced and pioneered, mirrored and enabled key developments that led to the present-day globalized economy. Contributions address issues such as the macro-level shift of shipping’s centre of gravity from Europe to Asia, the political and legal frameworks within which it developed, the strategies and performance of both successful and unsuccessful firms, and the links between the shipping industry and the wider economy and society. Without shipping and its ability to forge connections and networks of a global reach, the modern world would look very different. By bringing together scholars from various disciplinary and national backgrounds, this book advances our understanding of the linkages that bind economies and societies together.

This anthology aims to explain why some Nordic shipping companies became world leaders while others failed to respond effectively to the challenges and opportunities of globalization. The authors analyse political and institutional patterns alongside the various corporate responses to the many upheavals of global shipping.

This study aims to provide new insights into the connections between maritime history and global history. It demonstrates the significance of maritime activity as a conduit of global exchange by examining local, national, and international interdependencies and trade networks, and a broad range of time periods, geographical areas, and various sub-divisions of maritime historical research. It is composed of ten essays, with an introductory chapter and concluding chapter. The first five essays discuss the effects globalisation on shipping in the early modern period; the following three discuss maritime transportation and the economics of industrialisation from the nineteenth century to the present day; the next discusses the impact of global entrepreneurialism on maritime history; the penultimate discusses the connections and variables between maritime and global history; and the concluding chapter examines the theoretical assumptions surrounding the two disciplines, using the globalisation of Early Modern Spain as a case study to do so. The study demonstrates that the core strength of maritime history is its essential place in global history, and that the process of globalisation began at sea.

Maritime transport has been the main driver of trade growth, and the emergence and development of a global economy. This collection of essays from distinguished economists and historians takes an international and comparative perspective, covering topics ranging from technological advance and the role of the state to maritime business development.