| Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet |  | Author: Kevin Cahill
Creator: Rob McMahon
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Category: Book
List Price: $15.99
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 429,048
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0446581216
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.3
EAN: 9780446581219
ASIN: 0446581216
Publication Date: January 29, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 Very Educational! January 28, 2010
My Four Monkeys blog (Richmond, VA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
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.
Covering the relationship between landownership and poverty May 17, 2010
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
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 poverty and providing the results of the first landownership survey of all every territory and country in the world. Real estate figures and facts cover a range of cultural and modern issues and provide a different way of viewing land ownership and real state.
Almanac with a twist January 22, 2010
Michelle Van Loon
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
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.
The statistics were interesting February 22, 2010
Debbie (Alpena, AR United States)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"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. I've heard things like "China is terribly crowded" but now I know how it compares to other countries in terms of population in urban areas versus rural areas and so on.
I wasn't very impressed with Part One, which was only 52 pages long. The author's premise was that poverty can be wiped out if everyone in the world was given ownership of even a small piece of land. He then shows how rich people (who, ironically, made their riches from ideas and businesses) own a lot of land. The problem is that not every piece of land is created equal. Giving someone a remote bit of wasteland wouldn't be helpful. Not to mention that I've known a millionaire who owned an old house on a small bit of urban property (as in, he didn't own a lot of land), poor people (including farmers) who owned land, and poor people who inherited land and sold it for quick money (which they promptly wasted) or had to sell it due to debts. Land ownership doesn't automatically lead to riches.
Another problem I had with Part One was that he tended to compare apples to oranges to pears. I realize the difficulty he had in getting precise numbers, and I appreciate that he did usually state what, precisely, he was including in his numbers. However, he had a whole section comparing monarchs to each other with some numbers being what the monarch owned privately plus what the government owned "in their name," others with only government-owned lands credited to them, and others credited with all of the land they ruled over whether they technically own it or not. The various religions were also compared as to total wealth (based on the value of the land containing churches, religious hospitals, etc.) irregardless of the religions different administrative structures. A religion can't own land, only people, so I didn't get what the comparison was supposed to prove.
I found Part Two very interesting though I was still occasionally exasperated by comments the author made. (For example, he says land in America is too expensive, then lists the sale prices of the most expensive mansions in the USA to 'prove' his point. Um, land is pretty cheap. Even land with a house can be reasonable. We don't all have to own lavish mansions, you know.)
Part Two covered the statistics on United States in detail, state by state, and then gave the statistics for each country in the world. The statistics for the states included: population, population of the capital, size in acres, acres per person, number of houses, houses owned, houses rented, and acres of developed land. The statistics for countries included: population, size in acres, population, acres per person, GNI, World Bank ranking, and percentage urban population. It also gave the background history and how the state/country is owned (including urban vs farmland vs forestland statistics for the USA states) in a text description. It would have been helpful to have some graphs for each state or country to put everything in perspective, but the information was still interesting.
The book was easy to read. If you like statistical comparison books and are interested in this topic, then you'll probably enjoy this book.
This book was a free review copy sent to me by the publisher.
Reviewed by Debbie from Different Time Different Place Book Reviews
(differenttimedifferentplace. blogspot. com)
Who owns the world March 10, 2010
April A. Renn (Henderson, NC)
THE SURVIVORS CLUB BY BEN SHERWOOD is a nonfiction. It gives some insight into how to survive some of life's most challenging events. It is an interesting book if you enjoy this type of reading. As for this reader is was okay. 3.5 This book was received for review.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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