the long land war

 

A definitive history of ideas about land redistribution, allied political movements, and their varied consequences around the world   “An epic work of breathtaking scope and moral power, The Long Land War offers the definitive account of the rise and fall of land rights around the world over the last 150 years.” —Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City   Jo Guldi tells the story of a global struggle to bring food, water, and shelter to all. Land is shown to be a central motor of politics in the twentieth century: the basis of movements for giving reparations to formerly colonized people, protests to limit the rent paid by urban tenants, intellectual battles among development analysts, and the capture of land by squatters taking matters into their own hands. The book describes the results of state-engineered “land reform” policies beginning in Ireland in 1881 until U.S.-led interests and the World Bank effectively killed them off in 1974.   The Long Land War provides a definitive narrative of land redistribution alongside an unflinching critique of its failures, set against the background of the rise and fall of nationalism, communism, internationalism, information technology, and free-market economics. In considering how we could make the earth livable for all, she works out the important relationship between property ownership and justice on a changing planet.

Table of contents :  Cover Half Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Techniques of Occupancy 1. A Parade for Empire’s End PART I DECOLONIZING; OR, THE ROME CONSENSUS ANDTHE PEASANT ORIGINS OF WORLD GOVERNMENT 2. Something Like a Global Government of Land 3. Can Land Redistribution Scale with Population? PART II CARTOPHILIA; OR, BUILDINGINFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES 4. An Information Pipeline 5. On Failing to Make a Map in Time 6. The Questionable Effectiveness of Bibliography PART III BUREAUPHOBIA; OR, THE REVOLT AGAINST GOVERNMENT AND THE "THIRD WAY" 7. The Peasant’s Calculator 8. China and the Battle over Memory 9. Racism, Skepticism, and the Cloak of Science in U.S. Debates About Land Redistribution 10. A Neoliberal Rebellion in Britain PART IV RESISTANCE; OR, A DEMOCRATIC PROGRAM FOR OCCUPANCY 11. Techniques of the Mystic: The Long Walk of Vinoba Bhave 12. The Technique of the Squat: The Origins of Squatting After the Second World War 13. The Technique of the Map: Indigenous Title, Rent Control, and Pollution Epilogue: Why Land Redistribution Matters in the Age of Climate Change Appendix: A Note on Methodology and Terminology Timeline Notes Index