Owning the Earth: The Transforming History of Land Ownership

About the Book

Barely two centuries ago, most of the world’s productive land still belonged either communally to traditional societies or to the higher powers of monarch or church. But that pattern, and the ways of life that went with it, were consigned to history as a result of the most creative – and, at the same time, destructive – cultural force in the modern era: the idea of individual, exclusive ownership of land.

This notion laid waste to traditional communal civilisations, displacing entire peoples from their homelands, and brought into being a unique concept of individual freedom and a distinct form of representative government and democratic institutions. Other great civilizations, in Russia, China, and the Islamic world, evolved very different structures of land ownership, and thus very different forms of government and social responsibility.

The seventeenth-century English surveyor William Petty was the first man to recognise the connection between private property and free-market capitalism; the American radical Wolf Ladejinsky redistributed land in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea after the Second World War to make possible the emergence of Asian tiger economies. Through the eyes of these remarkable individuals and many more, including Chinese emperors and German peasants, Andro Linklater here presents the evolution of land ownership to offer a radically new view of mankind’s place on the planet.

About the Author :
Andro Linklater was the acclaimed author of Measuring America, The Fabric of America, An Artist in Treason, and Why Spencer Perceval Had to Die. He lived in England.

Review :
A sweeping history of land ownership is the final work of a master ... Linklater’s loss is felt all the more keenly because in Owning the Earth he has written a beautifully measured and extremely important book on the idea that “one person could own part of the Earth exclusively” Powerful polemic of wide scope and scholarship Andro’s own writing was as varied and colourful as his much-travelled life ... A comprehensive account of global land ownership … A sprawling, sparkling, off-the-wall political history of the globe This impressive book fuses politics, economics, philosophy and anthropology as it explores the complex, often fraught relationship between humans and land Masterly ... His intellectual range is as wide as his geographic or temporal range, spanning from Hobbes to Greenspan and including philosophers, politicians, religious figures and academics; an extensive notes section and bibliography allow readers to further pursue his source ideas. By focusing on land ownership, the emphasis in historical interpretation shifts from economics to politics, giving a much different perspective. This reinterpretation of global history will give readers of history, politics, and economics much to think about Ambitious global history of land ownership ... Linklater succeeds in this gargantuan task If the gentle reader has any concerns that a study of land ownership might tend to the dry, they will be dispelled in the very first pages of this book by the spectacular flamboyance of its opening ... A book that is never less than fascinating in its range, argument and erudition … In an age of pigmy specialisation, there is something heroically larger-than-life about the book’s global range and polymath accomplishment. And though Linklater did not live long enough to enjoy its plaudits, Owning the Earth is an appropriate monument to its author’s distinguished mind and ardent humanity Linklater is always an impartial and insightful referee ... The crucial insight of this book is that ownership depends not only on possession but on recognition ... Beguiling and provoking Linklater develops a fascinating narrative to show how, contrariwise, land reform everywhere from Ireland to Japan has again and again improved the people’s welfare and may still have the capacity do so again. A ground-breaker in every sense