ABSTRACT
Until the last third of the twentieth century, European shipping firms ran world shipping and used their maritime tradition to become makers of global shipping. This chapter explores the main stages of the evolution of the European shipping firm in the deep-sea/ocean-going shipping during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At the same time, it emphasizes the importance for globalization of the maritime tradition and know-how of small European maritime regions. Shipping is a business that takes place beyond national borders and beyond the land base of the shipping firm where trust and communication were of prime importance. It grew and flourished in particular maritime regions, small places that developed maritime tradition and a know-how to run ships. Later, the entrepreneurship of the small regions furnished the formation of large maritime centers within- and inter-regions and later on a global scale. They contributed to the formation and adaptation of global shipping institutions like open registries and offshore companies. Despite major transformations, even today one-third of the world fleet is still run by traditional European nations.
