LAND: How The Hunger For Ownership Shaped The World

A sweeping global history of how our land has been mapped, owned, divided, stolen, cared for, fought over, preserved and restored. Mass appropriation of land as perpetrated by European colonists in Africa, by settlers on Indigenous territories in North America, Australia and New Zealand, or by Zionist migrants in Palestine, is one important theme. In the company of some heroic early surveyors, historian Simon Winchester includes a history of map-making from earliest times to the origins of the UK's Ordnance Survey. His investigation of the world's largest landowners introduces Australian mining heiress Gina Rinehart's 29 million acres, the vast realms of the British monarchy, and the 100 Americans who together own as much as the entire state of Florida. Inspiration is to be found with Winchester's discussion of Maori approaches to the guardianship and preservation of land, and what happened in 1960s Europe when brand new sways of earth emerged from the sea. But what happens when authorities intervene to relocate people in countries like England, India, Scotland or America? How does land suffer in the long term from immense industrial pollution? How much value is there to rewilding? Why is so much land still owned by so few? By looking at the history and confronting some of today and tomorrow's greatest issues, the book offers insight into what ownership of this earth really means, not in statistical or legal terms, but for the humans looking to continue living here. A profound change is coming - the future is a foreign country. 446pp, illus. 2021 first edition.