ninety percent of everything by rose george

Had she chosen a more interesting ship (perhaps a heavy-lift with enormous cargo) or even an interesting route (as Keith Gessen did in his recent and compelling article Polar Express) she might have found a compelling story but Rose chose to ride aboard a container ship, a job even the crew call “boring, opaque, blank. However, it appears George may have set herself up for failure. There are currently 20 million containers and one hundred thousand ships at sea today.

In 2011, the 360 commercial ports in the US took in international goods worth $1.73 trillion, or eighty times the value of all U.S. Nearly 90 percent of everything we first-world humans consume is transported via ship (America obtains two-thirds of its oil from shipping). The chief of the British navy claims what we suffer from “sea blindness”, which after reading the book is readily apparent. Rarely talked about in the press unless something goes incredibly wrong, the shipping industry is the engine that keeps our interdependent economy running. In Ninety Percent of Everything, Rose George goes inside the shipping industry, traveling on the container ship, Kendal, from Felixstowe, England to Singapore, telling a story that fails to measure up.Īs a subject, the shipping industry is worthwhile to explore.

Great expository journalism like Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker or Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, dives deep into an industry and tells an engaging, true story about it.

Ninety percent of everything by rose george