Shipping, ports and trade are essential to humanity. Oceans, seas and rivers cover more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface. Since ancient times, people transported their goods across the water in rafts, canoes and sailboats. Now we sail across the oceans with container ships, bulk carriers and tankers. Indeed, ninety percent of world trade moves from port to port by ship. Ports are the hubs of the global society.

But ports and world trade are easily disrupted: a shipping accident in the Suez Canal, the COVID-19 pandemic, wars, climate change, geopolitical tensions. What happens in world ports? How did they originate? How have they developed? How did China's ports expand so dramatically? Can ports continue to grow indefinitely? What are they doing about climate change and energy transition? What will the maritime world look like in the future?

These are questions that Aafke Steenhuis and Jan Joost Teunissen asked over the past ten years as they traveled to strategic and colorful ports in the world, speaking with port experts, economists, writers and sociologists, and uncovering the facinating ecosystem of ports including Shanghai, Singapore, Mumbai, Dubai, Alexandria, Cape Town, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Marseille, Genoa, Los Angeles and Santos.

Aafke Steenhuis is an independent writer and painter. From 1974 to 1990 she was the editor for culture and Latin America for the weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer. She has published 22 books.

Jan Joost Teunissen is founder of FONDAD, an independent economic policy research center and a forum for international discussion, established in the Netherlands. Supported by a worldwide network of experts, it provides policy-oriented research on North-South issues in a globalizing world, in particular international financial issues. He has published more than 25 books.