The freight container facilitates an extraordinary amount of commercial exchange while undermining sovereign autonomy. By helping to integrate world trade, the container empowers the
activities of non-state actors - both licit and illicit. These activities have given rise to new tensions that threaten the very economic globalization that the container helped create.
Hoovestal delves into the social, economic and strategic ramifications of the container in Globalization Contained. On the one hand, despite their ideological differences, economies like
those of the US and China have a common interest in the globalization that containers make possible. On the other hand, this seemingly simple piece of technology stands between liberalist
market ’freedom’ and realist sovereign ’security.’ Examining the global significance of the freight container, with particular emphasis on the perspectives of the US and China, Globalization
Contained considers the implications of the freight container as an agent of change for the future of the global economy and global security.
