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If the phrase "Multimodal container transport really caught fire between 1955 and 1970" ignites anyone's interest, you should check out a book called The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson. It's a somewhat dry (by nature) but fascinating history of the topic.

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The Box is more than a history of container transport and its world-changing impact. It's a real lesson for entrepreneurs: Visionary takes on tradition-bound oligopoly; regulators can't cope with radical concept; international standards committees are about settling past political grievances and settling for laughable compromises, rather than setting the best course future efficiencies.

Highly recommend, as did Bill Gates, who ties it explicitly to developments in computing:

http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/The-Box

Can't recommend this book highly enough. Among other details, HN readers will appreciate that the global continer system represents packet switching in its original form.

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