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Empty Vessel

Name: Empty Vessel
Brand: Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand
SKU: 9781399816243
Price: 27.99 NZD
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The Story of the Global Economy in One Ship

By Ian Kumekawa

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Brief Description

'Thrilling, meticulous and wondrously original' PHILIPPE SANDSA 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... Read More

Format: Paperback / softback

$27⁹⁹

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Releases 18^th August 2026 (Approx. Date) Pre-order "Empty Vessel" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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Empty Vessel

$27⁹⁹

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.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781399816243

Publisher: John Murray Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 07 May 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: John Murray Publishers Ltd

Edition: Illustrated edition

Illustration: 15 B&W images

Audience: Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 26.0mm

Width: 128.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 240g

Pages: 336

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Education & Reference Finance & Economics Finance & Investment Ian Kumekawa Non-Fiction Politics & Current Affairs Pre-order Books Pre-orders Pre-orders by Release Date

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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Empty Vessel

By Ian Kumekawa

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