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Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet
 
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Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet [Paperback]

Kevin Cahill (Author), Rob McMahon (Contributor)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

You don't have to be a student of geography or cartography to have an interest in the world around you, especially with globalization making our planet seem smaller than ever. Now you can IM someone in Alaska, purchase coffee beans from Timor-Leste, and visit Dubai. But what do we really know about these lands?


WHO OWNS THE WORLD presents the results of the first-ever landownership survey of all 197 states and 66 territories of the world, and reveals facts both startling and eye-opening. You'll learn that:
--Only 15% of the world's population lays claim to landownership, and that landownership in too few hands is probably the single greatest cause of poverty.
--Queen Elizabeth II owns 1/6 of the entire land surface on earth (nearly 3 times the size of the U.S.).
--The Lichtenstein royal family is wealthier than the Grimaldis of Monaco.
--80% of the American population is crammed in urban areas.
--The least crowded state is Alaska, with 670 acres per person. The most crowded is New Jersey, with .7 acres per person. --60% of America's population are property owners. That's behind the UK (69% homeownership).
--And much, much more!


With its relevance to contemporary issues and culture, WHO OWNS THE WORLD makes for fascinating reading. Both entertaining and educational, it provides cocktail party conversation for years to come and is guaranteed to change the way you view the U.S. and the world.

About the Author

Kevin Cahill was born in the Irish Republic, and now lives in Devon, in the UK, with his wife. They have three daughters. A former army officer, Kevin has worked in the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Irish Parliament, and the European Parliament as an adviser and researcher. He is the author of a number of books on business, trade, and landownership and was a researcher on the original Sunday Times Rich List.


Rob McMahon is a freelance writer and editor with more than fifteen years experience in book publishing.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (January 29, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0446581216
  • ISBN-13: 978-0446581219
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #496,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
    #39 in  Books > Nonfiction > Law > Administrative Law > Land Use

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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Divvying Up the World, February 9, 2010
This review is from: Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet (Paperback)
The premise for this work is good: of all the world's land surface, who really owns all the various bits of it? Clearly land ownership is not equitably distributed; some own much more than others. This book presents reams of statistics about land ownership in just about every country and territory in the world, and most of these numbers have been well researched and are as good a set of numbers as you are likely to see, given that some countries have almost zero real data collection processes about these matters, and many more are in such a state of inner turmoil that determining who 'owns' what is a frustrating and near-meaningless endeavor.

But this book is marred by a major flaw, that of trying to impose the author's particular feelings on how land ownership should be dealt with, rather than investigating the reasons and history of how it is currently set up, and just how the world economies are very dependent on such distribution. In the first chapter, the author continuously points out that there is plenty of land for everybody, several acres for every man, woman, and child on the planet, and that if only such a equal distribution could be achieved, all the worlds troubles would go away. While it is certainly true that many of the world's wars have been over ownership of particular pieces of land, what this author misses are several facts:

1. Large portions of the world's surface, while technically marginally habitable, in reality will not support any type of heavy-density human presence. Areas such as the Australian outback, the huge Artic tundra areas, large tracts of land around and in the Sahara desert, the many heavily mountainous regions of the world should all be subtracted from the available land area that is available for divvying up amongst the world's population. There are very good reasons why so much of the world's population is concentrated in relative small areas of the planet, but this book does not delve into those reasons.

2. Many areas of the world can be farmed, but the most efficient, greatest yield-producing methods for many of these areas cannot be done in small plots, but rather require large tracts that lend themselves to mechanized farming methods, or have so little vegetation that their only viable use is grazing land at many acres per cow.

3. The best pieces of land are relatively small in comparison to all the rest, and like any item in short supply, there is strong competition for such pieces. Once someone has managed to gain control of such areas, they will normally do all they can to maintain that control. As the author presents no concrete plan for just how his 'equitable' distribution of land could be achieved, his harping about just how much of the world is controlled by so few comes across as a very irritating whine.

This same author viewpoint leads him to make some claims, that while they are 'technically' true, are absurd on their face, such as the claim that Queen Elizabeth II personally holds close to a sixth of world's land. Most of this is actually claimed by the British Crown, not the Queen personally, and if the Crown ever tried to actually invoke that claim (such as all of Australia) and kick all the current inhabitants out, there would be instant and massive opposition. Of much more interest was the author's detailing of what the Queen actually holds in her own name (not the Crown's), and this list is quite impressive, truly showing her to actually be one of largest landholders in the world. If all of this book had been like this one area, it would have truly been a very useful and enlightening look at who really owns the world. As it is, the only really useful items here are the statistics he has compiled on all the various countries listing area, population, and general form of land ownership, as this data is not easily findable all collected in one place.

Note also that this is not a book for casual reading; other than the first chapter the balance is composed of data listings for each country (or, for the US, each state) followed by a short half page set of tidbits about the area, some of which, while interesting, have nothing to do with land ownership.

Recommended only for statistical use.

---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Educational!, January 28, 2010
This review is from: Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet (Paperback)
Ever wonder who owns the world? Do you or someone you know enjoy reading about history and little known facts? Then you would definitely be interested in a new book I received from Hachette Books. It's entitled Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet and it's 384 pages of interesting and sometimes surprising facts from author Kevin Cahill.

This is a pretty thick book, but like many resource books, I don't think it is necessarily meant to be read from cover to cover. It features listings of all the major countries in the world, and all the states of the United States. Each listing contains facts and figures about land ownership, but also background information about how the piece of land was originally procured or confiscated. I truly found the background information very interesting. Especially when it came to the states of the U.S., it was very educational to find out just how the government came to own these pieces of land. I will be using this book to go along with some of our homeschooling curriculum. I was shocked to discover how much property that Queen Elizabeth II owned! There are so many British commonwealths and territories all around the world!

I also enjoyed comparing and contrasting the different countries. I know.... I'm a nerd. :) For instance, Alaska is about the size of the country of Iran (every country or territory listed also has a the country closest in size listed with it for easy comparison) and has about 670 acres per person. Iran on the other hand has only has 6 acres per person. Some of these countries are horribly crowded, like India with only 0.7 acres per person! In a country that large, can you imagine such a large population? There were so many places that I had never heard of, so I pulled out the globe and went to work figuring out where these countries and islands were. I spent a lot of time going back and forth throughout the book looking at listings, and reading about the history behind it all.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Almanac with a twist, January 22, 2010
This review is from: Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet (Paperback)
Who Owns The World? The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on The Planet is an encyclopedic accounting of land ownership on our globe. It is packed with fascinating facts: Did you know that Queen Elizabeth owns 1/6th of all the land on earth? Did you know that the largest private landowner in the U.S. is Ted Turner, who owns 1,800,000 acres of land? (Yes, all those zeroes belong in that number.) Have you ever heard of the British Indian Ocean Territory, a land area of 14,720 acres which is now believed to be used as a prison for those captured in the war on terror?

Though most of the 369-page paperback is devoted to information about who controls every square inch of land, authors Kevin Cahill and Rob McMahon explain their purpose in putting this book together:
This book asserts that the main cause of most remaining poverty in the world is an excess of landownership in too few hands. This book will also assert that private ownership of a very small amount on land - one-tenth of an urban acre or an acre or two of rural land - granted to every person on the planet has the potential to, and, I believe, begin ending poverty on a global basis. The book will go further and reassert that the right to the direct ownership of land is a fundamental human right.

After a 60-page introduction that unpacks these assertions, the remainder of the book surveys every country of the world, giving information about population, size, gross national income, percentage of land held by private owners, a line or two about the country's history, and an explanation of how the country is owned.

The book doesn't offer solutions to the inequalities presented in the book (a handful of kings, queens, sheiks, religious institutions and individuals control most of the land on earth) or do much to tackle the dicey issues of political and/or ethnic identity that have shaped most modern nation-states. But then again, it isn't meant to do so. Who Owns The World? tells a compelling, unsettling story with stats, and is an interesting reference tool for students and those interested in international politics.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Deserves Less than One Star
I bought this book because I like statistics. However, After the first two items I looked at the data was so glaringly off-base I returned the book. Read more
Published 25 days ago by R. R. Lunn

5.0 out of 5 stars Covering the relationship between landownership and poverty
WHO OWNS THE WORLD THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT EVERY PIECE OF LAND ON THE PLANET is a 'must' for any general lending library, covering the relationship between landownership and... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Midwest Book Review

3.0 out of 5 stars Who owns the world
THE SURVIVORS CLUB BY BEN SHERWOOD is a nonfiction. It gives some insight into how to survive some of life's most challenging events. Read more
Published 6 months ago by April A. Renn

3.0 out of 5 stars The statistics were interesting
"Who Owns the World" was mainly a statistical reference book, though definitely one with an agenda behind it. I found the actual statistics very interesting. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Debbie

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