The Land We Share: Private Property And The Common Good

Eric T. Freyfogle

$43.00

Publication Date: August 8th, 2003

Publisher:

Island Press

ISBN:

9781610911696

Pages:

352

Description

Is private ownership an inviolate right that individuals can wield as they see fit? Or is it better understood in more collective terms, as an institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals? What should it mean to be a private landowner in an age of sprawling growth and declining biological diversity?

These provocative questions lie at the heart of this perceptive and wide-ranging new book by legal scholar and conservationist Eric Freyfogle. Bringing together insights from history, law, philosophy, and ecology, Freyfogle undertakes a fascinating inquiry into the ownership of nature, leading us behind publicized and contentious disputes over open-space regulation, wetlands protection, and wildlife habitat to reveal the foundations of and changing ideas about private ownership in America.

Drawing upon ideas from Thomas Jefferson, Henry George, and Aldo Leopold and interweaving engaging accounts of actual disputes over land-use issues, Freyfogle develops a powerful vision of what private ownership in America could mean—an ownership system, fair to owners and taxpayers alike, that fosters healthy land and healthy economies.

About the Author

Eric T. Freyfogle is Research Professor and Swanlund Chair Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he has taught for over thirty years in the areas of natural resources, property and land use law, environmental law and policy, wildlife law, and conservation thought. His various writings include Our Oldest Task: Making Sense of Our Place in Nature (University of Chicago Press 2017), Why Conservation Is Failing and How It Can Regain Ground (Yale University Press 2006), and coauthored law school casebooks on wildlife law, natural resources law, and property law. He has long been active in state and national conservation efforts, including service on the Boards of the National Wildlife Federation and its Illinois affiliate, Prairie Rivers Network.

Praise for The Land We Share: Private Property And The Common Good

"Freyfogle's argument that private property is an organic, natural entity that has evolved from age to age—not a static concept bound by immutable laws—comes just in time for a renewed debate on the subject. Goodness knows we need some fresh thinking on the matter, and Freyfogle has supplied it."
— John Hanson Mitchell

"The Land We Share is an extraordinarily lucid and creative analysis that clears the fog that has descended on issues of property ownership and rights. This is essential reading."
— David W. Orr

"What does it mean to own land? No one has thought more deeply or written more lucidly about this question than Eric Freyfogle. He brings to the discussion a sure knowledge of American history and law, a keen awareness of our ecological predicament, and a lively tongue."
— Scott Russell Sanders