Land Power

Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies

By: Michael Albertus

Narrated by: Braden Wright

An award-winning political scientist shows that a society’s path to prosperity, sustainability, and equality depends on who owns the land

For millennia, land has been a symbol of wealth and privilege. But the true power of land ownership is even greater than we might think. In Land Power, political scientist Michael Albertus shows that who owns the land determines whether a society will be equal or unequal, whether it will develop or decline, and whether it will safeguard or sacrifice its environment.

Modern history has been defined by land reallocation on a massive scale. From the 1500s on, European colonial powers and new nation-states shifted indigenous lands into the hands of settlers. The 1900s brought new waves of land appropriation, from Soviet and Maoist collectivization to initiatives turning large estates over to family farmers. The shuffle continues today as governments vie for power and prosperity by choosing who should get land. Drawing on a career’s worth of original research and on-the-ground fieldwork, Albertus shows that choices about who owns the land have locked in poverty, sexism, racism, and climate crisis—and that what we do with the land today can change our collective fate.

Global in scope, Land Power argues that saving civilization must begin with the earth under our feet.

©2025 Michael Albertus (P)2025 Basic Books

Critic reviews

“Land Power is an important book dealing with a timeless but underappreciated issue: who owns the land. It illuminates how social hierarchies and injustice have been historically built around unfair land rights and provides a fascinating array of examples of how reshuffling land can help tackle these pressing issues.”—Francis Fukuyama, author of Liberalism and Its Discontents

“Land has always been a source of economic wealth. This captivating book demonstrates that it has also been a fountainhead of political and social power, profoundly shaping the organization and political structures of many societies.”—Daron Acemoglu, coauthor of Power and Progress

“‘Land’—Four simple letters. Four enormous impacts: on racial divides, gender inequality, the struggle for development, and our precarious environment. In this powerful and compelling book, Michael Albertus re-invents how to think about that most simple but profound force shaping our lives—the ground beneath us.”—Ben Ansell, author of Why Politics Fails