The standard reference text for maritime economics, covering shipping market cycles from 1741 to the early 2000s, the mechanics of supply, demand, and freight rate formation across tanker, bulk, container, and specialist markets, and the financial architecture of ship ownership including costs, revenue, and risk management. Stopford’s framework for understanding how shipping markets work — the interplay of slow-moving supply (new vessel orders take years to deliver) and volatile demand — is directly applicable to CO₂ shipping, where the market is building from scratch and capital commitments for purpose-built carriers must be made years before the cargo volumes they depend on have been contracted.