Rose George

Revealing the workings and dangers of freight shipping, which is the key to our economy, environment and civilization, the author sails from Rotterdam to Suez to Singapore to present an eye-opening glimpse into an overlooked world filled with suspect practices, dubious operators and pirates.

Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate

Ninety Percent of Everything

Josh Clement

A very good non-fiction book. There's many interesting facts. The author focuses on topics that directly relate to her experience as a passenger on a huge container ship, like “will we hit a whale, or will we get abducted by pirates?” Don't expect nerdy detail.

Ships at sea is a romantic image, but I came away thinking that modern shipping sounds thankless and dehumanizing. The sailors she interviews sound clinically depressed. Considering “sixty percent of shipping accidents are due to human error” how long until this whole thing is run by robots?

Andrew Reeves

Helen Bright

Ethan Lee-Tyson

Eitan Hershkovitz

Rafael Garcia

Stefan Pettersson

On ship-tracking Web sites, the waters are black with dots. Each dot is a ship; each ship is laden with boxes; each box is laden with goods. In postindustrial economies, we no longer produce but buy, and so we must ship. Without shipping there would be no clothes, food, paper, or fuel. Without all those dots, the world would not work. Yet freight shipping is all but invisible. Away from public scrutiny, it revels in suspect practices, dubious operators, and a shady system of "flags of convenience." And then there are the pirates. Rose George, acclaimed chronicler of what we would rather ignore, sails from Rotterdam to Suez to Singapore on ships the length of football fields and the height of Niagara Falls; she patrols the Indian Ocean with an anti-piracy task force; she joins seafaring chaplains, and investigates the harm that ships inflict on endangered whales. Sharply informative and entertaining, Ninety Percent of Everything reveals the workings and perils of an unseen world that holds the key to our economy, our environment, and our very civilization.

Nadav Spiegelman

Andrew Kerr

Remi Damours

Klara Ahlin

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

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