Cargo Liners. An Illustrated History

book summary

For 100 years, between 1850 and 1950, the cargo liner grew to dominate the world's trade routes and, unlike the tramp steamer, provided regular services with advertised sailings and fixed dates that merchants, shippersand importers could rely on. They were the mainstay of maritime trade and carried much of the world's higher value manufactured goods to all the corners of the globe, returning to the industrialised countries with raw materials.
The books begins with the establishement of router around Europe and across the North Atlantic in the 1850s. Not until the Liverpool ship owner and engineer, Alfred Holt, developed high-pressure compound engines were coal-powered vessels able to steam further afield, to the Far East and Australia. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 cemented the dominance of the cargo liner and only with the appearance of the first container ship in the 1950s was that dominance finally overthrown.
CONTENTS:
Origins and Early Years
Consolidation
Innovations in Machinery and German Competition
World War I
Difficult Trading and the Rise of the Motorship
Depression and Renaissance
The US Maritime Commision Shipbuilding Programme and Wolrd War II Construction
Postwar Reconstruction
New Designs and Innovation
Apogee and Decline as Containerisation Spreads
Bibliography