Land: How Property Hunger Shaped the Modern World takes an in-depth look at how we acquire land, how we manage it, how and why we fight for it, and finally, how we can, and occasionally, come from to share them. Ultimately, Winchester is faced with the essential question: who really owns the earth of the world and why does it matter?
Winchester begins with the personal—recounting his own experience buying a farm in rural New York—and expands outward to discuss land disputes, colonization, the enclosure movement, Native American dispossession, African land conflicts, and the evolution of property laws. Each chapter focuses on a different geographic or thematic area, from Scottish Highland clearances to Māori land rights in New Zealand to post-apartheid South Africa.
Winchester’s writing is clear, vivid, and often witty. He has a knack for turning potentially dry legal and historical material into accessible and even dramatic narratives.
