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NINETY PERCENT OF EVERYTHING
By: Rose George
nside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate
Metropolitan Books
August 2013
On Sale: August 13, 2013
287 pages
ISBN: 0805092633
EAN: 9780805092639
Kindle: B009LRWJKW
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
Eye-opening and compelling, the overlooked world of freight shipping, revealed as the foundation of our civilization On ship-tracking websites, 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. We buy, so we must ship. Without shipping there would be no clothes, food, paper, or fuel. Without all those dots, the world would not work. Freight shipping has been no less revolutionary than the printing press or the Internet, yet it is all but invisible. Away from public scrutiny, shipping revels in suspect practices, dubious operators, and a shady system of βflags of convenience.β Infesting our waters, poisoning our air, and a prime culprit of acoustic pollution, shipping is environmentally indefensible. 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 fishing trawlers and the harm they are inflicting 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.
 Media BuzzFresh Air - NPR - August 14, 2013
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