Michael Albertus, a University of Chicago political scientist, has written extensively about land reform and property rights. His new book, Land Power, is an exploration of how possessing land can dictate the fate of societies.
Examining land ownership through the prism of the Great Reshuffle gives Albertus a lens to understanding various upheavals and changes in land ownership across several centuries.
It is a book of big ideas, analysis and arguments that draws upon 15 years of archival research and fieldwork. This approach allows for a better understanding of various types of land ownership and its associated power, racial and gender imbalances.
Divided into 10 chapters and three sections, Albertus offers an insightful journey through centuries of land/power dynamics across the world. He shows how land power is inextricably linked with economic, political and social power, exploring gender and racial imbalances in its management and the political power that is intrinsic in its possession.
Land Power: How ownership of the ground beneath our feet can mould our destiny and even embed racial and gendered inequalities
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Land power entrenched inequalities while producing societies and cultures. Various land systems, such as the hacienda system in Latin America, were permanent forms of abuse for indigenous populations, Albertus says. Settlers had the support of imperial governments to assert control over land and consolidate their positions.
There are many strengths in this book that examines a variety of land holding systems from the 17th century to the present.
One example of many is where Albertus examines land grabs in California and the American Midwest during the second half of the 19th century.
The interior of the United States was being opened up for development and exploitation. The division of land into square-mile blocks, with odd numbers given to railway companies, is one of the most interesting elements of this section of the book.
Albertus shows us how ruthlessly exploited Native American populations were and how land redistribution led to the creation and embedding of racial and gendered hierarchies, not just in the US but internationally. Government officials actively undermined a number of Cahullia communities, especially in the Coachella Valley and around Palm Springs. They did this through a deliberate misreading of legislation in order to get land for development and a form of social engineering to develop Palm Springs into a wealthy, elite enclave.
This book brilliantly shows the consequences of the colonial project, particularly in Latin America, with land not only being appropriated by settlers, but ecosystems being reframed and destroyed for economic development. This was also the case in Europe and Asia.
Soviet land collectivisation that began in earnest during the 1920s influenced similar policies in China to the point that private property was totally abolished in China by 1958 as the Great Leap Forward contributed to a full-scale forest resource disaster and dirty industrial transformation. This land reallocation, driven by the Chinese Communist Party, was one of the largest land reshuffles in history that led to a deeply damaging pattern of land use.
Albertus is particularly attentive to the environmental impact of various land distribution policies.
One striking example is the Chinese government efforts to eradicate sparrows because they ate seeds and crops. This policy disrupted the ecosystem in the country. Sluggish agricultural growth created famines and chemical fertilisation did huge damage to land, communities and water supplies.
Latin American and Australian land reforms from the 1970s offer some interesting insight into what could work – conservation work with philanthropic individuals and NGOs in Chile to create national parks is a potential solution that Albertus posits to preserve nature and have a more holistic approach to landholding.
Ireland gets a brief mention – Albertus quotes Michael Davitt, whose animus towards landlords was resolute as he described the landholding system as a “vampire system”. However, Albertus’s presentation of the Irish land question being resolved with the redistribution of land following the Victorian Land Acts is simplistic – he does not engage with the relevant, abundant historiography produced since the 1970s on various aspects of the Irish land question and land holding.
He writes that the “independent and autonomous class of Irish small farmers could hold their heads high in the new Ireland”. While the contemporary political rhetoric may have said that, work by Paul Bew, Philip Bull, Mary E Daly, Samuel Clark, Terence Dooley, James S Donnelly, Barbara Solow and this reviewer among others on the land question and rural society in the 19th and 20th centuries would nuance this claim.
This gripe aside, this is an excellent, insightful book that tells us much about the complexities of land ownership across the world, ecological destruction, gender imbalances and a path forward for a more equitable response that can preserve the livelihoods of people, confront racial prejudice and the scars of colonialism and navigating a path to preserve and revive the environment for future generations in this era of climate urgency.
Dr Brian Casey is an honorary fellow in the department of theology and religion at Durham University. He is the author of Class and Community in Provincial Ireland, 1851-1914 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
