“Gelina Harlaftis has written an indispensable work on the history of our globalized
world. Based on remarkable archival research, including unprecedented access to
the Onassis archives, it moves seamlessly from the local to the transnational, from
the world of the nineteenth-century Black Sea grain trade to the world we inhabit
today. It is a remarkable achievement.”
Mark Mazower, Columbia University
“At last we have a powerfully researched, scholarly study of global shipping’s most
referential personality in the twentieth century. By coupling the Onassis story with
that of the Vaglianos, Gelina Harlaftis, our foremost historian of modern Greek
shipping, shows how the rise of Greek shipping magnates to world preeminence
paralleled the creation of cross-oceanic networks that tie our world together today.”
Michael Miller, University of Miami
“Gelina Harlaftis has produced a remarkable contribution to understanding the
evolution of the global economy. Ambitious in scope, scholarly in execution, and
exceptionally fluently argued, her study of the role of the Vagliano and Onassis
enterprises in fashioning the global bulk shipping market, which underpins much of
today’s world system, is outstanding.”
Sarah Palmer, University of Greenwich
“To understand globalization means understanding its fundamental components –
technology, institutions, business culture, and entrepreneurial forces active in the
realm of the international economy. In this seminal book, which summarizes years of
research, Gelina Harlaftis provides invaluable evidence for those interested in the
complex and articulated universe of global entrepreneurship.”
Andrea Colli, Bocconi University
Cover illustration: Konstantinos Volanakis, The Port of
Piraeus (1885–1890). Pan. Laskaridis Collection.
Cover designed by Hart McLeod Ltd
PRINTED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
CREATING GLOBAL SHIPPING
9781108475396 HARLAFTIS – CREATING GLOBAL SHIPPING JACKET C M Y K
Cambridge Studies in the Emergence of Global Enterprise
Harlaftis
GELINA HARLAFTIS is the director of the Institute
for Mediterranean Studies of the Foundation of
Research and Technology–Hellas (FORTH) in Crete,
and is a professor of maritime history at the University
of Crete. She was president of the International
Maritime Economic History Association, visiting fellow
at All Souls College, Oxford University, and an Alfred
D. Chandler Jr. International Visiting Scholar at the
Harvard Business School. She has published many
books, including The World’s Key Industry: History
and Economics of International Shipping, a collection
coedited with Stig Tenold and Jésus M. Valdaliso.
Gelina Harlaftis
CREATING
GLOBAL
SHIPPING
Aristotle Onassis,
the Vagliano Brothers,
and the Business
of Shipping,
c.1820–1970
Shipping has been the international business par
excellence in many national economies, one that
preceded trends in other, more highly visible sectors
of international economic activity. Nevertheless, in
both business and economic history, shipping has
remained relatively overlooked. That gap is filled
by this exploration of the evolution of European
shipping through the study of two Greek shipping
firms. They provide a prime example of the regional
European maritime businesses that evolved to serve
Europe’s international trade and, eventually, the global
economy. By the end of the twentieth century, Greeks
owned more ships than any other nationality. The story
of the Vagliano brothers traces the transformation of
Greek shipping from local shipping and trading to
international shipping and ship management, while
the case of Aristotle Onassis reveals how international
shipping was transformed into a global business.
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