Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World

by Simon Winchester

Overview

The author of The Professor and the Madman and The Perfectionists explores the notion of property—our proprietary relationship with the land—through human history, how it has shaped us and what it will mean for our future.

Land—whether meadow or mountainside, desert or peat bog, parkland or pasture, suburb or city—is central to our existence. It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing—and have done—with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet.

Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: who actually owns the world’s land—and why does it matter? 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062938336
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	01/19/2021
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	7,736
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Simon Winchester is the acclaimed author of many books, including The Professor and the Madman, The Men Who United the States, The Map That Changed the World, The Man Who Loved China, A Crack in the Edge of the World, and Krakatoa, all of which were New York Times bestsellers and appeared on numerous best and notable lists. In 2006, Winchester was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen. He resides in western Massachusetts.

Hometown:

New York; Massachusetts; Scotland

Date of Birth:

September 28, 1944

Place of Birth:

London, England

Education:

M.A., St. Catherine¿s College, Oxford, 1966

Website:

http://www.simonwinchester.com

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xiii

Prologue: Uncommon Ground 1

1 Transaction 3

2 Foundation 13

3 Population 23

4 Exploitation 35

5 Demarcation, Eviction, Possession 41

6 Exploration 49

Part I Borderlines 55

1 When the Worm Forgave the Plough 57

2 The Size of All the Earth 75

3 Just Where Is Everything 91

4 At the Edges of Worlds 111

5 Drawing a Distinction 143

Part II Annals of Acquisition 155

1 Up and Out and On the Level 157

2 Islands of the Dammed 163

3 Red Territory 187

4 The Land and the Gentry 247

Part III Stewardship 263

1 The Tragedies of Improvement 265

2 The Accumulators of Space 301

3 Going Nowhere and Everywhere 331

4 The World Made Wild Again 349

5 On Wisdom, Down Under 365

6 Parks, Recreation, and Plutonium 383

Part IV Battlegrounds 405

1 The Dreary Steeples 407

2 The Unholy Land 413

3 Death on the Rich Black Earth 439

4 Concentration and Confiscation 465

Part V Annals of Restoration 497

1 Maori in Arcady 499

2 Strangers in the Hebrides 533

3 Bringing Africa Home 563

4 Aliens in Wonderland 581

5 Trust Is Everything 595

Epilogue: Yet Now the Land Is Drowning 613

With Great Thanks 637

A Glossary of Terms, Some Possibly Unfamiliar, Associated with Land and Its Ownership 643

Bibliography 659

Editorial Reviews

10/26/2020

Winchester (The Perfectionists) probes “humankind’s approach to the possession of the world’s surface” in this eclectic account. Using his purchase of 123 forested acres in New York’s Berkshire Mountains as a launching point, Winchester explores the geological history of the planet (he notes that New England formed one billion years ago in the Southern Hemisphere) and the legal, cultural, and social issues related to land use and ownership. He details the decades-long creation of Flevoland, a province in the Netherlands built entirely on land reclaimed from the North Sea, attributing Dutch communalism and consensus-driven policymaking to the fact that much of the country is below sea level. Winchester also details debates over indigenous land rights in America and Australia, and notes that Australian mining magnate Lang Hancock, whose daughter, Gina Rinehart, is now the world’s largest private landowner with 29 million acres under her control, once suggested that unemployed aboriginal Australians should be sterilized. Winchester amasses a wealth of intriguing factoids and arcana, though readers looking for a comprehensive overview of the subject will be disappointed. Still, this is an entertaining and erudite roundup of humanity’s ever-evolving relationship with terra firma. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"In many ways, “Land” combines bits and pieces of many of Winchester’s previous books into a satisfying, globe-trotting whole...Winchester is, once again, a consummate guide."

Boston Globe

"Exudes the comfort and charm of a beloved encyclopedia come to life."

New Yorker

01/01/2021

The land, and how we divide, demarcate, and economize it, has a history and culture of its own. Accomplished writer Winchester (Krakatoa; The Map That Changed the World) furthers his work on humans and their interaction with the land in this wide-ranging account. He begins with a discussion about a patch of land he purchased in Dutchess County, NY, using this strip of earth as a stepping-stone into the concept of land ownership and the broader concept of human interaction with geography. While the land seems solid and immutable, it has changed dramatically over geologic time. The occupants of the land have also changed: Native Americans lived in the New York area for thousands of years, followed by Dutch and then English settlers. Winchester also points out that map boundaries are extremely political, illustrating stark divisions such as the independence and subsequent break between Catholic Ireland and Northern Ireland in 1921. Land itself is a topic of great concern. Colonizers of foreign lands often do not understand the local ecology, as when British settlers in Australia dismissed the Aboriginal practice of controlled underbrush fires, leading to devastating fires today. Winchester also points out that land is at risk, including a discussion on rising sea levels. VERDICT Winchester's large audience will enjoy this well-worded, interdisciplinary look into the relationship between humans and the land.—Jeffrey Meyer, Iowa Wesleyan Univ.

Library Journal

2020-10-13
The latest sweeping, satisfying popular history from the British American author and journalist, this time covering a topic that many of us take for granted.

Having bought 123 acres north of New York City, Winchester muses on what land ownership means. At the most basic level, it means that “you have the right to call the police to throw anyone else off what the title documents say belongs to you.” Bronze Age farmers began the process of defining boundaries, but human ingenuity, technology, and avarice produced increasingly accurate markers, surveys, and maps that delineated national borders, a matter of obsessive concern to governments around the world. Winchester delivers a riveting history of mapmaking, which culminated over the past few centuries as heroic surveyors trudged with their instruments thousands of miles to produce charts that were both beautiful and dazzlingly precise. (For a particularly illuminating example, see Winchester’s The Map That Changed the World.) For most of history, human yearning for land outstripped that for money, and the author offers familiar, disheartening accounts of mass acquisitions and theft: Native America (and Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) to Whites, Arab Palestine to Jewish immigrants, Africa to European powers. Readers looking for inspiration will perk up to read about the Netherlands, which acquired its land from the sea and didn’t evict anyone. Although less well known than tech billionaires, America’s land billionaires are prospering, increasing their holdings by 50% since 2007. In fact, the top 100 own land equal to the size of Florida. With some exceptions, they are strangers to public spirit and sometimes fiercely opposed to anyone setting foot on even their wilderness property. The chapters on the Stalin-ordered mass famine in Ukraine and the shameful World War II imprisonment of Japanese Americans (and confiscation of their property) make for painful reading but important historical reminders. The author also discusses climate change and the land that continues to disappear as rising temperatures melt the ice caps.

Engaging revelations about land and property, often discouraging but never dull.

Kirkus Reviews

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