--- product_id: 7089687 title: "Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate" price: "€ 44.45" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.gr/products/7089687-ninety-percent-of-everything-inside-shipping-the-invisible-industry-that store_origin: GR region: Greece --- # Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate **Price:** € 44.45 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate - **How much does it cost?** € 44.45 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.gr](https://www.desertcart.gr/products/7089687-ninety-percent-of-everything-inside-shipping-the-invisible-industry-that) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Eye-opening and compelling, the overlooked world of freight shipping, revealed as the foundation of our civilization. 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. Review: A World Few Ever See - The author does a wonderful job of taking the reader inside a world that few ever see. She augments her narrative of travel on board an actual containership with a stellar overview of the global shipping industry and its challenges. For anyone with an interest in maritime topics, or folks like me who worked in international trade for years, Ms. George shines a light on all that we don't typically see. I like how she combines a narrative of her journey with very relevant digressions into the meat of containerized shipping - schedules and ports, safety and personnel issues, maritime law, piracy, and much more. This is where she really sets herself, and this work, apart. I came away with a much better understanding of life on these vessels, and really hated to reach the end of the book. The closest thing I have to a criticism, and it most definitely is not, is that she didn't get too deep into the personalities and innermost thoughts of the ship's crew. Still, she gave enough flavor to get a basic feel. Of course further depth into this area would be impossible to gather without an extreme investment in time and contacts - perhaps a lifetime inside the industry. Nevertheless, she did a great overview of this, while giving the reader deep insight into how these ships function, the challenges that the industry faces, and the role of ocean shipping in global trade. In summary, this was great book and for me, definitely a repeat read. Well written, well researched, fascinating. It held my interest from start to finish. Quality writing and editing - a very good job! Review: Fascinating but Sad - My grandmother came from a seafaring family on the coast of Ireland, and as a little boy I heard countless tales of men at sea (women didn't go to sea except as passengers in her day). Seafaring life sounded dangerous yet fascinating. My relatives in Ireland continued going to sea, but I realize that fewer did so in each succeeding generation, and this book explains why. Most ships fly "flags of convenience" from countries that have little to do with the ship or crew itself. The crews can come from anyplace, and the ownership of ships is often buried in layers of charters and corporate fronts. The author goes on a trip from Britain to Singapore on a Maersk ship with a British master and an international crew. We get to know the master, who is at the end of his career, and many of his crew members. She details just how monotonous the trip is, and how dangerous it is as the ship goes around the Horn of Africa. Rather than let us suffer through a dreary accounting of that voyage, she digresses into stories about various aspects of the shipping industry. The author tells us about ships that sink, ships that are abandoned when it's no longer profitable to run them (along with their unfortunate crews), the abuses that come along with the Flag of Convenience system, and mostly the difficulty of going to sea. The shipping business has changed greatly from my great grandfather's time. In his day, there were still sailing ships, and ships under power burned coal. The crew sizes were much larger, and cargo loading and unloading was done by hand. A ship might be in port for weeks while its cargo was unloaded and new cargo loaded. The author explains how today ships have much smaller crews. With containerization loading and unloading takes hours instead of days or weeks. The city docks in port cities are closed, and now the ships pull up to container ports far away from the centers of the cities. The crews get little or no shore leave, so basically they spend months confined to the ship with no release from the monotony. I found the book fascinating, but I was disappointed to see that seafaring life isn't what it was in my great grandfather's time. In some ways it has improved (seaman aren't locked in chains or shanghaied like they were in his day), but in other ways it has gotten worse. Being a seafarer has never been easy, and the author effectively conveys this message. However, I always thought being a merchant seaman would be an adventurous life, but that era apparently has passed. I find that very sad. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #121,053 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #28 in Ship History (Books) #35 in Transportation Industry (Books) #2,201 in Sociology (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.1 out of 5 stars 972 Reviews | ## Images ![Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91A49FRr-rL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A World Few Ever See *by D***K on September 15, 2013* The author does a wonderful job of taking the reader inside a world that few ever see. She augments her narrative of travel on board an actual containership with a stellar overview of the global shipping industry and its challenges. For anyone with an interest in maritime topics, or folks like me who worked in international trade for years, Ms. George shines a light on all that we don't typically see. I like how she combines a narrative of her journey with very relevant digressions into the meat of containerized shipping - schedules and ports, safety and personnel issues, maritime law, piracy, and much more. This is where she really sets herself, and this work, apart. I came away with a much better understanding of life on these vessels, and really hated to reach the end of the book. The closest thing I have to a criticism, and it most definitely is not, is that she didn't get too deep into the personalities and innermost thoughts of the ship's crew. Still, she gave enough flavor to get a basic feel. Of course further depth into this area would be impossible to gather without an extreme investment in time and contacts - perhaps a lifetime inside the industry. Nevertheless, she did a great overview of this, while giving the reader deep insight into how these ships function, the challenges that the industry faces, and the role of ocean shipping in global trade. In summary, this was great book and for me, definitely a repeat read. Well written, well researched, fascinating. It held my interest from start to finish. Quality writing and editing - a very good job! ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fascinating but Sad *by G***E on December 1, 2013* My grandmother came from a seafaring family on the coast of Ireland, and as a little boy I heard countless tales of men at sea (women didn't go to sea except as passengers in her day). Seafaring life sounded dangerous yet fascinating. My relatives in Ireland continued going to sea, but I realize that fewer did so in each succeeding generation, and this book explains why. Most ships fly "flags of convenience" from countries that have little to do with the ship or crew itself. The crews can come from anyplace, and the ownership of ships is often buried in layers of charters and corporate fronts. The author goes on a trip from Britain to Singapore on a Maersk ship with a British master and an international crew. We get to know the master, who is at the end of his career, and many of his crew members. She details just how monotonous the trip is, and how dangerous it is as the ship goes around the Horn of Africa. Rather than let us suffer through a dreary accounting of that voyage, she digresses into stories about various aspects of the shipping industry. The author tells us about ships that sink, ships that are abandoned when it's no longer profitable to run them (along with their unfortunate crews), the abuses that come along with the Flag of Convenience system, and mostly the difficulty of going to sea. The shipping business has changed greatly from my great grandfather's time. In his day, there were still sailing ships, and ships under power burned coal. The crew sizes were much larger, and cargo loading and unloading was done by hand. A ship might be in port for weeks while its cargo was unloaded and new cargo loaded. The author explains how today ships have much smaller crews. With containerization loading and unloading takes hours instead of days or weeks. The city docks in port cities are closed, and now the ships pull up to container ports far away from the centers of the cities. The crews get little or no shore leave, so basically they spend months confined to the ship with no release from the monotony. I found the book fascinating, but I was disappointed to see that seafaring life isn't what it was in my great grandfather's time. In some ways it has improved (seaman aren't locked in chains or shanghaied like they were in his day), but in other ways it has gotten worse. Being a seafarer has never been easy, and the author effectively conveys this message. However, I always thought being a merchant seaman would be an adventurous life, but that era apparently has passed. I find that very sad. ### ⭐⭐⭐ Less than I had hoped for *by M***0 on December 28, 2013* Caveat Emptor; I work in the marine industry, so while some of what George was saying was new to me, most of it was not. George presents an interesting, if somewhat frantic and directionless look at the workings of not just the container industry, but shipping and the seas as a whole. Overall I found it too broad to address any of the topics with any seriousness. While clearly well researched in my view it needed a tighter plot. The Good; Engaging to read. Makes the marine world accessible to most if not all It's an interesting narrative The Bad; Too Broad, I would have preferred more detail about fewer subjects Transitions can feel rudderless at times If I could go back in time would I read it again? Yes, but with less anticipation Would I recommend it? Yes, although probably not to anyone in the maritime industry ## Frequently Bought Together - Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate - Outside the Box: How Globalization Changed from Moving Stuff to Spreading Ideas --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.gr/products/7089687-ninety-percent-of-everything-inside-shipping-the-invisible-industry-that](https://www.desertcart.gr/products/7089687-ninety-percent-of-everything-inside-shipping-the-invisible-industry-that) --- *Product available on Desertcart Greece* *Store origin: GR* *Last updated: 2026-10-13*