A jaw-dropping microhistory of the global economy over the last fifty years told through the many lives of a single ship, from a brilliant young historian.
11th August 2025
Hardcover
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Summary
A jaw-dropping microhistory of the global economy over the last fifty years told through the many lives of a single ship, from a brilliant young historian.
Description
'Thrilling, meticulous and wondrously original' PHILIPPE SANDS
A jaw-dropping microhistory of the global economy over the last fifty years told through the many lives of a single ship.At 94 meters long and 9,500 deadweight tonnes, once called the Bibby Resolution, is an unremarkable hulk, crossing the oceans unnoticed. And yet, the astonishing journey of this boat can tell us the story of the modern world.First built as a Swedish offshore oil rig in the 1970s, it went on to become a barracks for British soldiers in the Falklands War in the 1980s, a jail off New York in the 1990s, a prison in Portland in the 2000s, and accommodation for Nigerian oil workers off the coast of Africa in the 2010s. It has been called Safe Esperia, HMP The Weare, even 'The Love Boat'. In each of its lives this empty vessel has been commanded by economic forces much larger than itself: private investment, war, mass incarceration, imperial interests, national sovereignty, inflation, booms, busts and greed.Through its encounters with a world of island tax havens, the English court system, exploited labour forces, free banking zones or immigration politics, the ordinary boat at the heart of this story reveals our complex modern economy to us, connecting the dots of a dramatically changing world in the making, and warning us of its dangerous consequences.Critic Reviews
In the astonishing trajectory of a humble barge, Empty Vessel delivers an ambitious history of the global economy, linking everything from oil-drilling and offshore finance to military deployments and mass incarceration. I've rarely read a book that so deftly entwines a single, accessible story with the broad forces of globalization. A stunningly original history, as phenomenally well-researched as it is eloquently told
-- Maya Jasanoff, author of THE DAWN WATCHKumekawa's tale of the Barge . . . is an imaginative and beautifully written allegory of the decades of globalization and the fugitive wealth it supported. What an eye-opening read!
-- Charles S. Maier, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard UniversityA captivating story-I read it like a detective novel-and at the same time a profound contribution to the history of economic, financial and material life in the contemporary globalized world -- Emma Rothschild, Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History, Harvard University
Kumekawa brilliantly traces the history of one vessel to make the historical forces of globalization concrete. A riveting and important read that shows the strange ties between tax havens and trade, prisons and ports. Offshore is more than a concept; it is a place. Kumekawa is the ideal guide to that place and its complicated inner workings
-- Heidi Tworek, Professor of History and Public Policy and Canada Research Chair, University of British ColumbiaWhen the world went on lockdown, Ian Kumekawa took a different tack, tracking a single barge through its journey across the planet. What he discovers is the hidden material life and labor that make the global economy possible. A brilliant, unforgettable tale of our modern times -- Eric Klinenberg, author of 2020
An ingenious, marvelous book. Ian Kumekawa has captured the big economic stories of the past half-century in the perambulations of a single ship. His Vessel drifts across the globe from one major upheaval to the next, a floating, steel witness to extraction, mass production, deindustrialization, incarceration, and war. The result is a high seas picaresque through the systems that tie the modern world together -- Henry Grabar, author of PAVED PARADISE
A gripping tale-of a floating prison, the worlds of global and offshore capital in which such ships are moored, and the maritime and legal infrastructures that keep such worlds afloat, even amidst the tidal waves of economic and ecological disaster
-- Surabhi Ranganathan, Professor of International Law, University of CambridgeEmpty Vessel, both the book and the accommodation container ship whose checkered history it unfolds, brilliantly illuminates the workings of a global offshore economy that would prefer to remain in the shadows, lingering on the margins of the law, thriving on secrecy, sleight of hand and tax avoidance. By following in the vessels' wake Kumekawa's riveting story reveals not just its physical use and functions-as accommodation for British troops, New York prisoners, oil workers, asylum seekers-but explains how the Vessel became an exemplary object caught up in global skeins/schemes of capital and finance -- John Brewer, Professor Emeritus, Caltech Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
A thrilling, meticulous and wondrously original journey, told with a flair and reverence for detail that captures all the joys, travails and horrors of life across time, place and water. A fabulous book -- Philippe Sands, author of EAST WEST STREET
About the Author
Ian Kumekawa is a historian at the Center for History and Economics at Harvard University. He is the author of The First Serious Optimist: A. C. Pigou and the Birth of Welfare Economics (2017), which was the co-winner of the Joseph J. Spengler Prize. He has taught at Harvard and MIT. He lives in Boston.
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11th August 2025
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