08-07-2007, 07:53 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Long Ashton, Bristol
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Who Owns the World: The Hidden Facts Behind Landownership
| | Who Owns the World: The Hidden Facts Behind Landownership | | by Kevin Cahill | | | | This book is the first account of the underlying structures of landownership throughout the world both in the present and historically. It is also the first ever record of how and by whom, the land of the planet is owned. The book covers, devoting approximately one page to each, all 197 countries, 66 major territories and each of the 50 states of the USA, in the 21st century. With the aid of Professor John Powelson's earlier study, the Story of Land, the book shows that for about 9,800 of the last 10,000 years, all of the land of the planet has been owned by between 1% and 3% of the human race, with 97% of the planetary population living and dying for 10,000 years, without ever owning so much as a blade of grass. This is a result of two interconnected forms of ownership asserted throughout history. One is monarchical. The other is feudal, in which a superior lord, usually a monarch, claims ownership of all land within a given domain or territory. The book shows that the dominant form of legal ownership in the 21st Century remains feudal, with a monarch Elizabeth 11 of the UK, in legal possession of over 6,600 million acres,over a sixth of the planets surface of 36,900 million acres. Her fellow monarchs claim a further 2,000 million acres of land as their legal possession. Some countries, including China, Mexico and Argentina and the Irish Republic, also make the feudal claim, allowing no citizen to own land and offering leases or freehold tenure only. | | | | The book links, as does the World Bank, landlessness with poverty in the developing world. But the book specifies how landlessness occurs, through excessive state and institutional ownership, something the World Bank has yet to demonstrate. | | | | Check prices at:
Blackwell's
Search for second hand copies on:
AbeBooks.co.uk |
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