Reconfiguring transport infrastructure in post-war Asia: mapping South Korean container ports, 1952–1978

ABSTRACT In standard accounts of the origins of the ISO (International Organization for Standardization), or intermodal, shipping container, including Marc Levinson’s The Box and Alexander Klose’s The Container Principle, the story remains centered in Europe and North America, reflecting the issue emerging on the continent in the prewar era, and the post-war growth of the American trucking industry, associated with the expansion of federal highways. In contrast, this essay moves the focus to East and Southeast Asia, reflecting the significance of the Korean War and the Vietnam War as factors driving the shift from break-bulk shipping to containers, here motivated by military logistics. The post-war 1945 reconfiguration of Japan’s wartime empire, involving the reconstitution of relationships deriving from imperial connections, meant that new sites such as Busan, South Korea (1952) and Cam Ranh Bay, South Vietnam (1965 to early 1970s) became the focal points for vast infusions of war-related materials.