The world the box made -- Gridlock on the docks -- The trucker -- The system -- The battle for New York's port -- Union disunion -- Setting the standard -- Takeoff -- Vietnam -- Ports in a storm -- Boom and bust -- The bigness complex -- The shippers' revenge -- Just in time

Fifty years ago—on April 26, 1956—the freighter Ideal X steamed from Berth 26 in Port Newark, New Jersey. Flying the flag of the Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, she set out for Houston with an unusual cargo: 58 trailer trucks lashed to her top deck. But they weren’t trucks—they were...