A history of the Port of Long Beach, Calif., from the days of Native Americans in San Pedro Bay to the present, Port Town tells the story of the men and women who took a mud flat and turned it into an economic powerhouse, one of the world's most modern ports.

A relatively new immigrant group in the United States, Cambodians arrived in large numbers only after the 1975 U.S. military withdrawal from Southeast Asia. The region's resulting volatility included Cambodia's overthrow by the brutal Khmer Rouge. The four-year reign of terror by these Communist extremists resulted in the deaths of an estimated two million Cambodians in what has become known as the "killing fields." Many early Cambodian evacuees settled in Long Beach, which today contains the largest concentration of Cambodians in the United States. Later arrivals, survivors of the Khmer Rouge trauma, were drawn to Long Beach by family and friends, jobs, the coastal climate, and access to the Port of Long Beach's Asian imports. Long Beach has since become the political, economic, and cultural center of activities influencing Cambodian culture in the diaspora as well as Cambodia itself.

Few other cities can boast of the natural assets, the people, and the events that shaped the first 50 years of their history, as can the city of Long Beach, California. First inhabited by the Tongva people, the land was taken away by the Spanish, then granted to "friends of the King," who in turn sold parcels to real estate speculators working with the railroads. It was called many names before Belle Lowe suggested in 1884 that the townsite be known for its eight miles of long beaches. Its oceanfront provided a resort area, a landing strip for early aviators, a fishing industry, a port for shipbuilding and trade, and a location for the US Navy to anchor its "battle fleet" in 1919. However, discovery of oil in 1921 transformed the city, bringing incredible wealth and an explosive growth in population. By 1938, the city's population was 200,000 and would be a major factor in the Southern California war effort.

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that reshaped manufacturing. But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, years of high-stakes bargaining, and delicate negotiation on standards. Now with a new chapter, The Box tells the dramatic story of how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur turned containerization from an impractical idea into a phenomenon that transformed economic geography, slashed transportation costs, and made the boom in global trade possible. -- from back cover.