Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate

The author does a wonderful job of taking the reader inside a world that few ever see. She augments her narrative of travel on board an actual containership with a stellar overview of the global shipping industry and its challenges. For anyone with an interest in maritime topics, or folks like me who worked in international trade for years, Ms. George shines a light on all that we don't typically see. I like how she combines a narrative of her journey with very relevant digressions into the meat of containerized shipping - schedules and ports, safety and personnel issues, maritime law, piracy, and much more. This is where she really sets herself, and this work, apart. I came away with a much better understanding of life on these vessels, and really hated to reach the end of the book. The closest thing I have to a criticism, and it most definitely is not, is that she didn't get too deep into the personalities and innermost thoughts of the ship's crew. Still, she gave enough flavor to get a basic feel. Of course further depth into this area would be impossible to gather without an extreme investment in time and contacts - perhaps a lifetime inside the industry. Nevertheless, she did a great overview of this, while giving the reader deep insight into how these ships function, the challenges that the industry faces, and the role of ocean shipping in global trade. In summary, this was great book and for me, definitely a repeat read. Well written, well researched, fascinating. It held my interest from start to finish. Quality writing and editing - a very good job!

My grandmother came from a seafaring family on the coast of Ireland, and as a little boy I heard countless tales of men at sea (women didn't go to sea except as passengers in her day). Seafaring life sounded dangerous yet fascinating. My relatives in Ireland continued going to sea, but I realize that fewer did so in each succeeding generation, and this book explains why. Most ships fly "flags of convenience" from countries that have little to do with the ship or crew itself. The crews can come from anyplace, and the ownership of ships is often buried in layers of charters and corporate fronts. The author goes on a trip from Britain to Singapore on a Maersk ship with a British master and an international crew. We get to know the master, who is at the end of his career, and many of his crew members. She details just how monotonous the trip is, and how dangerous it is as the ship goes around the Horn of Africa. Rather than let us suffer through a dreary accounting of that voyage, she digresses into stories about various aspects of the shipping industry. The author tells us about ships that sink, ships that are abandoned when it's no longer profitable to run them (along with their unfortunate crews), the abuses that come along with the Flag of Convenience system, and mostly the difficulty of going to sea. The shipping business has changed greatly from my great grandfather's time. In his day, there were still sailing ships, and ships under power burned coal. The crew sizes were much larger, and cargo loading and unloading was done by hand. A ship might be in port for weeks while its cargo was unloaded and new cargo loaded. The author explains how today ships have much smaller crews. With containerization loading and unloading takes hours instead of days or weeks. The city docks in port cities are closed, and now the ships pull up to container ports far away from the centers of the cities. The crews get little or no shore leave, so basically they spend months confined to the ship with no release from the monotony. I found the book fascinating, but I was disappointed to see that seafaring life isn't what it was in my great grandfather's time. In some ways it has improved (seaman aren't locked in chains or shanghaied like they were in his day), but in other ways it has gotten worse. Being a seafarer has never been easy, and the author effectively conveys this message. However, I always thought being a merchant seaman would be an adventurous life, but that era apparently has passed. I find that very sad.

Caveat Emptor; I work in the marine industry, so while some of what George was saying was new to me, most of it was not. George presents an interesting, if somewhat frantic and directionless look at the workings of not just the container industry, but shipping and the seas as a whole. Overall I found it too broad to address any of the topics with any seriousness. While clearly well researched in my view it needed a tighter plot. The Good; Engaging to read. Makes the marine world accessible to most if not all It's an interesting narrative The Bad; Too Broad, I would have preferred more detail about fewer subjects Transitions can feel rudderless at times If I could go back in time would I read it again? Yes, but with less anticipation Would I recommend it? Yes, although probably not to anyone in the maritime industry

This book is Extremely well-written, Extremely well-researched, Extremely informative, AND brings much of the hidden "human elements" of this massive industry into our vision. Every one of us is a 'consumer' of the shipping industry, and everyone should read this book. I had to resist the urge to marker-highlight this book to death, as I wanted to share it, unmarked, with others. Interspersing the current with history, and the mundane with drama, Rose George has done a great service here, for those who wish to hear and learn how the world's most crucial "web" works, and ponder how it might work better. As with governments, much of the "shipping" industry is concealed, which Rose uncovers, but not completely --- the tycoons and corporations behind shipping still hide.

Ninety Percent of Everything has a lot going for it. The author, Rose George, writes fluidly, and she has conducted extensive research on the shipping industry. She has enough courage to travel for a month on a container ship from England through the Suez Canal, the Gulf of Aden, and pirate territory in the Indian Ocean all the way to Singapore. She is often both entertaining and informative, as when she reports that "Shipping is so cheap that it makes more financial sense for Scottish cod to be sent ten thousand miles to China to be filleted, then sent back to Scottish shops and restaurants, than to pay Scottish filleters. A Scottish newspaper called this practice `madness,' but actually it's just shipping." Yet this book left me slightly disappointed. In part, this is because her journey was not particularly dramatic-- after many strong chapters, the book seems to fizzle out near its end. The book's structure is a problem. When the journey doesn't yield up lessons in the issues she intends to discuss, she abruptly switches to accounts of other excursions. The result is a bumpy, if ultimately illuminating, ride.

The author has really done a wonderful job of researching historical context, and also supplemented with her own experience by being on a container ship. As consumers we are used to the benefits of globalization in terms of getting things from all over the world at prices never before possible. But the implications are significant: the book does a great job of : 1. balancing what the personal aspect is like as a seafarer, 2. the regulations (or lack of it) that govern the process of countries flying flags of ships with fewer rules, 3. go deep into the life of a seafarer and how the profession has changed (mostly gotten worse) 4. environmental impact of these larger ships, not just the carbon footprint but impact on marine life and whales. I am not an environmental savvy person and had no idea who whales suffer at the hands of these ships 5. Somalian piracy.

I was expecting a book on the modern shipping business, particularly now that boxes are so established. In fact, this is much more varied, describing the writer's experiences while sailing on a large container carrier but also delving into the hard (socially, emotionally, racially) life of a modern sailor and topics such as whales, pirates, and contemporary warships. Though mostly interesting and certainly informative - and well written - I didn't find it a real page-turner; not knowing what the next chapter would be about didn't cause anticipation, more like wondering if it would be one of the more interesting ones, or one of the others. I'd give the book a qualified recommendation - good for the right reader (for example, an old sailor finding out how things have changed in his absence) but for others, not so much despite the quality of the writing.

The book is an interesting "slice of life" story with lots of factoids and anecdotes mixed into the narrative. It still falls into a category of books which seek to scold the shipping or cruise industry by way of presenting an expose of negative reality. (see "Cruise Ship Blues" for a prime example of clear agendas thinly masked behind claims of objective research and origional discovery.) However I would not say that was so much the intent as the result with this book. There is much to be said that is negative and that is simply what you learn reading the book. But if there was an interest in building sympathy for those working in the industry the book does not achieve that. Rather it simply paints a picture of yet another part of society that has evolved greatly in the last century and has heros and villians on all sides. You are left with a simple reminder that no society has risen without there being an underclass and that there are no "perfect worlds" in which it can be otherwise.

Interesante y muy buena investigación

Certainly an interesting read but it could have been written in half the number of pages. F. ex., way too many pages are spent writing about pirates, which while horrible, only affects a tiny number of ships. There are so many other shipping subjects that could have been included instead, tons to choose from but what about at least including an owner's perspective in what is an incredibly volatile industry that is notorious for its boom and bust nature.

This is a book which knits info and language into a wonderful tapestry! Despite being decades into the shipping industry, I learnt a lot! A must book to have if you ever talk about the Suez Jam!

the book gives a very holistic insight into the shipping industry -ranging from work conditions over environmental aspects up to piracy... one does look at shipping & transport with different eyes after reading it!

It takes a really good writer to get you interested in things that you never thought would be interesting. John McPhee managed it for years and Rose George is a worthy successor. So lots of stuff goes around the world in ships. So what? George takes us for a ride on a container ship and the stories she tells are absolutely fascinating. Unless you're in the merchant marine, you will find interesting stuff here and have a jolly good read at the same time.