The Habit of Turning the World Upside Down: Our Belief in Property and the Cost of That Belief

by Howard Mansfield

Overview

While reporting on citizens fighting natural gas pipelines and transmission lines planned to cut right across their homes, Howard Mansfield saw the emotional toll of these projects. “They got under the skin,” writes Mansfield. “This was about more than kilowatts, powerlines, and pipelines. Something in this upheaval felt familiar. I began to realize that I was witnessing an essential American experience: the world turned upside down. And it all turned on one word: property.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780872332706
Publisher:	Bauhan Publishing
Publication date:	10/02/2018
Edition description:	first
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Howard Mansfield is the author of books about preservation, architecture, and history. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, Historic Preservation, and Yankee. He and his wife, writer Sy Montgomery, live in a 130-year-old house in Hancock, New Hampshire.

Table of Contents

Introduction 13

1 Sacred Property

Desert Teachings 19

Land Rush: A Brief History of Turning the World Upside Down 32

Land of Many Uses 51

The Last Medieval Claim 62

2 What Am I Going to Lose?

The Ballad of Romaine Tenney 82

My Roots Are Deeper than Your Pockets 97

The Pipeline in the Neighborhood 108

Three Beautiful Days on a Warming Planet 128

Epilogue Finding the Good Life in Broken Town 146

Bibliography 158

Acknowledgments 174

Editorial Reviews

The always eloquent Mansfield (Summer over Autumn, 2017) conducts an evocative foray into the history of American property rights in this slim but enormously prescient title. ... the scalpellike precision with which Mansfield homes in on the relationship between Americans and the land that proves most perceptive. He accepts all the complexities of his chosen subject yet is gifted with an unerring eye for the true heart of the matter. Who decides the best use of property? Who truly owns it? Powerful insights live on these pages, and Mansfield's observations matter now more than ever.”—Colleen Mondor, Booklist (starred)

From the Publisher