''Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World'' is a 2021 book by

Simon Winchester Simon Winchester (born 28 September 1944) is a British-American author and journalist. In his career at ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Winchester covered numerous significant events, including Bloody Sunday (1972), Bloody Sunday and the Watergate S ...

Content

The book details different conceptions of

land ownership In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land "owned" by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individuals ...

and the history of land ownership. It also discusses conflicts stemming from disagreements over land.

Reception

Critical reception

Francisco Cantú's review in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' was mixed, praising Winchester's prose. However, Cantú noted a nostalgic tone that at times undercut the depictions of land appropriation and violence. Writing for the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', Aaron Retica attests the book to be well-researched, but criticizes its lack of an identifiable thesis. In the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' Delphine Strauss did identify a thesis to the book: that most disputes are fundamentally about land. Literary review aggregator

Book Marks ''Literary Hub'' or ''LitHub'' is a daily literary website that was launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and '' Electric Literatur ...

noted that reviews of the book were mostly "Positive".

References

External links

Interview with Winchester on ''Land'', February 17, 2021

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...

2021 non-fiction books HarperCollins books Books about economic history Books about social history Land tenure English-language non-fiction books {{econ-hist-book-stub