How One Little Barge Explains the History of Globalization by End o'currn read by George Washington the third Donald Trump's return to the White House has sent shock waves through the world economy, and his tariffs, the highest level in a century, have sent economists, executives and investors scrambling to explain what is happening After decades of hyper globalized commerce. Some see a world turning more protectionist, with supply lines shifting closer to home and capital flows increasingly guided by geopolitical rivalries. How did we get here? There are many comprehensive histories of the recent era of globalization, but a new book takes a novel approach, tracing the ebbs and flow of global commerce since the nineteen seventies through the prism of an unlikely subject, a barge. The book Empty Vessel, The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge Knaff twenty twenty five, by Harvard academic ian Kumakawa, tracks the history of a Swedish made barge that, since its construction in the nineteen seventies, experienced a shipping crash, an energy boom, and the Falklands War. The story of the vessel as Kumakawa refers to it since its birth at a dockyard near Stockholm is fundamentally a tale of how the world economy was transformed in the late twentieth century. The barge was once fitted with modular containers and housed British troops in the Falkland Islands. At other times it offered accommodation for Volkswagen assembly workers in Germany and offshore oil workers in the North Sea. It also did stints as a floating prison in New York and later the UK. In the nineteen nineties, cash strapped New York authorities were pursuing an aggressive crackdown on crime and saw the city's jail population surge. That led the Department of Corrections to lease the barge for five years at a cost of nineteen million dollars, securing three hundred seventy nine beds for prisoners. Kumakawa was drawn to the topic through the work of his wife, a criminal lawyer, who alerted him to the existence of a prison ship in New York City in twenty twenty. That ship was the successor to the vessel which once held prisoners on the East River, prompting the historian to delve into its past. With COVID shutting down many typical avenues for research, Kumakawa got to work through zoom calls and document searches before eventually traveling around the world to stitch together the story of the barge over almost three years of research. Once I found the barge, it was a complete treasure trove of stories. He says. It had really touched so many facets of the modern economy and the offshore world. Kumakawa learned that the vessel's journey over the course of decades spanned the Baltic Sea, North Sea, South Atlantic Caribbean, the River Ems, the East River, the English Channel, the River Thames, the Gulf of Guinea, and Walvis Bay in Namibia. Through these travels, his book explains how trade, manufacturing, and labor have been transformed by globalization, including the work of making the barge in the first place. Kumakawa lays out the kind of workers that were needed to build ships in the nineteen seventies welders, draftsmen, supervisors, crane operators, steel workers, lantern makers, light bulb manufacturers, wire producers, mechanical engineers, and more. A contract to build a ship lifted economic activity across the supply chain, but the work was physical, dirty, and could be dangerous. In the US today, Trump has made rejuvenating the nation's shipbuilding industry a policy priority, seeking to reverse decades of decline. It remains to be seen whether that still leads to an employment surge, or if much of modern day shipbuilding will be done via automation. But even in the nineteen seventies, the necessary hardware and material needed to build the vessel were sourced throughout Europe, a reminder that Trump's tariff wall may need further tweaking if shipbuilding is to prosper. The early years of the barge's life are dominated by the theme of de industrialization, as shipyard closed and production shifted from Western economies to Asia. The welding hall near Stockholm, where the vessel was made, was converted into a rave dance club in the nineteen nineties and has since become a gleaming supermarket, while a nearby wharf is part of an upscale residential complex. The old engine workshop is now a showroom for designer furniture that sells sofas for seven thousand dollars. Those transformations reflect the way numerous wealthy countries have seen manufacturing give way to a service and a consumer led economy at the cost of heavy industry, stoking division between workers who were left behind and those who prospered in the new economy. Writing about the period when British troops lived on the floating barge in the years after repelling Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands, Kumakawa notes that morale was low and that the barge, although pitched as a floating hotel, was beset by cramped conditions and squalor, with only VHS tapes for entertainment. He quotes a former RAF pilot describing the accommodation luxurious. They were not sordid, they could be. There's a lesson from the vessel's time in the North Sea, too, as the world gradually eases its reliance on hydrocarbons and looks to alternative sources of energy. The Volkswagen plant in Emden, where the vessel once housed autoworkers in the late nineteen eighties, is now churning out electric vehicles, while a nearby shipyard became insolvent in the early twenty tens. The vessel has been a technology of globalization, Kumakaua writes. He concludes by describing the rudderless, motorless barge as buffeted by the forces outside its control, akin to the people around the world disempowered by global trade. Read another way, though, Empty Vessel is a tale of the little barge that could. The book says the vessel and its sister ship were meant to be temporary, mobile, adaptable, fluid, and that they could be filled with almost anything. They could take on a dizzying array of roles and meanings. The barge's varied history is proof of its adaptability. It is always one journey away from reinvention. But if the book captures a moment in globalization, the rise of offshore financial centers, and the role of free market economics during the height of the Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan years, it also makes it clear that that era is fast becoming history. The vessel has moved between contexts around the world, used as a tool to circumvent or neutralize frictions. Kumakawas says, right now, the Trump administration seems keen to reinsert some of those frictions in the form of tariffs, However, there is another element of the barge's story that will remain even if global trade stalls or recedes. The vessel was especially valuable during crises, Kumakawa rites, and its usefulness depended on the assumption that there would always be some crisis somewhere in the world it could help address. While the fate of globalization feels hard to forecast right now, it seems safe to assume that particular need won't go away. As for the vessel's current whereabouts, now known as the Jascon twenty seven, the ship left service after the oil price slump in the middle of the last decade. According to the book, ship tracking websites pin its last known location off the coast of Nigeria as of late twenty twenty three. But Kumakawa says the final act has yet to play out. With minimal adjustment, it could be transformed from barracks to jail, from hotel to adjunct oil rig. He writes, perhaps there is yet another roll for the vessel still to come.

How One Little Barge Explains the History of Globalization by End o'currn read by George Washington the third Donald Trump's return to the White House has sent shock waves through the world economy, and his tariffs, the highest level in a century, have sent economists, executives and investors scrambling to explain what is happening After decades of hyper globalized commerce. Some see a world turning more protectionist, with supply lines shifting closer to home and capital flows increasingly guided by geopolitical rivalries. How did we get here? There are many comprehensive histories of the recent era of globalization, but a new book takes a novel approach, tracing the ebbs and flow of global commerce since the nineteen seventies through the prism of an unlikely subject, a barge. The book Empty Vessel, The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge Knaff twenty twenty five, by Harvard academic ian Kumakawa, tracks the history of a Swedish made barge that, since its construction in the nineteen seventies, experienced a shipping crash, an energy boom, and the Falklands War. The story of the vessel as Kumakawa refers to it since its birth at a dockyard near Stockholm is fundamentally a tale of how the world economy was transformed in the late twentieth century. The barge was once fitted with modular containers and housed British troops in the Falkland Islands. At other times it offered accommodation for Volkswagen assembly workers in Germany and offshore oil workers in the North Sea. It also did stints as a floating prison in New York and later the UK. In the nineteen nineties, cash strapped New York authorities were pursuing an aggressive crackdown on crime and saw the city's jail population surge. That led the Department of Corrections to lease the barge for five years at a cost of nineteen million dollars, securing three hundred seventy nine beds for prisoners. Kumakawa was drawn to the topic through the work of his wife, a criminal lawyer, who alerted him to the existence of a prison ship in New York City in twenty twenty. That ship was the successor to the vessel which once held prisoners on the East River, prompting the historian to delve into its past. With COVID shutting down many typical avenues for research, Kumakawa got to work through zoom calls and document searches before eventually traveling around the world to stitch together the story of the barge over almost three years of research. Once I found the barge, it was a complete treasure trove of stories. He says. It had really touched so many facets of the modern economy and the offshore world. Kumakawa learned that the vessel's journey over the course of decades spanned the Baltic Sea, North Sea, South Atlantic Caribbean, the River Ems, the East River, the English Channel, the River Thames, the Gulf of Guinea, and Walvis Bay in Namibia. Through these travels, his book explains how trade, manufacturing, and labor have been transformed by globalization, including the work of making the barge in the first place. Kumakawa lays out the kind of workers that were needed to build ships in the nineteen seventies welders, draftsmen, supervisors, crane operators, steel workers, lantern makers, light bulb manufacturers, wire producers, mechanical engineers, and more. A contract to build a ship lifted economic activity across the supply chain, but the work was physical, dirty, and could be dangerous. In the US today, Trump has made rejuvenating the nation's shipbuilding industry a policy priority, seeking to reverse decades of decline. It remains to be seen whether that still leads to an employment surge, or if much of modern day shipbuilding will be done via automation. But even in the nineteen seventies, the necessary hardware and material needed to build the vessel were sourced throughout Europe, a reminder that Trump's tariff wall may need further tweaking if shipbuilding is to prosper. The early years of the barge's life are dominated by the theme of de industrialization, as shipyard closed and production shifted from Western economies to Asia. The welding hall near Stockholm, where the vessel was made, was converted into a rave dance club in the nineteen nineties and has since become a gleaming supermarket, while a nearby wharf is part of an upscale residential complex. The old engine workshop is now a showroom for designer furniture that sells sofas for seven thousand dollars. Those transformations reflect the way numerous wealthy countries have seen manufacturing give way to a service and a consumer led economy at the cost of heavy industry, stoking division between workers who were left behind and those who prospered in the new economy. Writing about the period when British troops lived on the floating barge in the years after repelling Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands, Kumakawa notes that morale was low and that the barge, although pitched as a floating hotel, was beset by cramped conditions and squalor, with only VHS tapes for entertainment. He quotes a former RAF pilot describing the accommodation luxurious. They were not sordid, they could be. There's a lesson from the vessel's time in the North Sea, too, as the world gradually eases its reliance on hydrocarbons and looks to alternative sources of energy. The Volkswagen plant in Emden, where the vessel once housed autoworkers in the late nineteen eighties, is now churning out electric vehicles, while a nearby shipyard became insolvent in the early twenty tens. The vessel has been a technology of globalization, Kumakaua writes. He concludes by describing the rudderless, motorless barge as buffeted by the forces outside its control, akin to the people around the world disempowered by global trade. Read another way, though, Empty Vessel is a tale of the little barge that could. The book says the vessel and its sister ship were meant to be temporary, mobile, adaptable, fluid, and that they could be filled with almost anything. They could take on a dizzying array of roles and meanings. The barge's varied history is proof of its adaptability. It is always one journey away from reinvention. But if the book captures a moment in globalization, the rise of offshore financial centers, and the role of free market economics during the height of the Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan years, it also makes it clear that that era is fast becoming history. The vessel has moved between contexts around the world, used as a tool to circumvent or neutralize frictions. Kumakawas says, right now, the Trump administration seems keen to reinsert some of those frictions in the form of tariffs, However, there is another element of the barge's story that will remain even if global trade stalls or recedes. The vessel was especially valuable during crises, Kumakawa rites, and its usefulness depended on the assumption that there would always be some crisis somewhere in the world it could help address. While the fate of globalization feels hard to forecast right now, it seems safe to assume that particular need won't go away. As for the vessel's current whereabouts, now known as the Jascon twenty seven, the ship left service after the oil price slump in the middle of the last decade. According to the book, ship tracking websites pin its last known location off the coast of Nigeria as of late twenty twenty three. But Kumakawa says the final act has yet to play out. With minimal adjustment, it could be transformed from barracks to jail, from hotel to adjunct oil rig. He writes, perhaps there is yet another roll for the vessel still to come.