Who Owns England: How We Lost Our Land and How to Take It Back

(Paperback)

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A formidable, brave and important book Robert Macfarlane

Who owns England

Behind this simple question lies this countrys oldest and best-kept secret. This is the history of how Englands elite came to own our land, and an inspiring manifesto for how to open up our countryside once more.
This book has been a long time coming. Since 1086, in fact. For centuries, Englands elite have covered up how they got their hands on millions of acres of our land, by constructing walls, burying surveys and more recently, sheltering behind offshore shell companies. But with the dawn of digital mapping and the Freedom of Information Act, its becoming increasingly difficult for them to hide.

Trespassing through tightly-guarded country estates, ecologically ravaged grouse moors and empty Mayfair mansions, writer and activist Guy Shrubsole has used these 21st century tools to uncover a wealth of never-before-seen information about the people who own our land, to create the most comprehensive map of land ownership in England that has ever been made public.

From secret military islands to tunnels deep beneath London, Shrubsole unearths truths concealed since the Domesday Book about who is really in charge of this country at a time when Brexit is meant to be returning sovereignty to the people. Melding history, politics and polemic, he vividly demonstrates how taking control of land ownership is key to tackling everything from the housing crisis to climate change and even halting the erosion of our very democracy.

Its time to expose the truth about who owns England and finally take back our green and pleasant land.

Reviews

A formidable, brave and important book Robert Macfarlane

Potentially one of the most important books of the year Chris Packham

This is going to be a great book, crucial for anyone who seeks to understand this country George Monbiot

An irrefutable and long overdue call for the enfranchisement of the landless Marion Shoard, author of This Land is Our Land

The question posed by the title of this crucial book has, for nearly a thousand years, been one that as a nation we have mostly been too cowed or too polite to ask. There has, as a result, been some serious journalistic legwork in Shrubsoles endeavour. Shrubsole ends his fine inquiry into these issues with a 10-point prospectus as to how this millennium-long problem might be brought up to date, and how our land could be made to work productively and healthily for us all Observer, Book of the Week

Both detective story and historical investigation, Shrubsoles book is a passionately argued polemic which offers radical, innovative but also practical proposals for transforming how the people of England use and protect the land that they depend on land which should be a common treasury for all Guardian

Painstakingly researched having come to the end of this illuminating and well-argued book its hard not to feel that its time for a revolution in the way we manage this green and pleasant land Melissa Harrison, New Statesman

There is an enormous amount to admire Times Literary Supplement

Shrubsole is an entertaining guide to the history of landownership Literary Review

Author Bio

Guy Shrubsole is a writer and environmental campaigner. He has worked for Rewilding Britain, Friends of the Earth, the UK government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and New Zealand's Ministry of Agriculture. He has written widely for publications including the Guardian and New Statesman. His first book, Who Owns England, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller.