Book recommendation: 'Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet'

[Colin Donoghue]

"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.).*"

13 used from £3.03

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Owns-World-Surprising-Planet/dp/0446581216

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Owns-World-Surprising-Planet/dp/0446581216

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Educational!, 28 Jan 2010 
By My Four Monkeys blog "Angie" - Published on Amazon U.S. 
This review is from: Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth about Every Piece of Land on the Planet (Paperback) 
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. 

-- 
“To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men.” -Ella

W. Willcox
http://colindonoghue.wordpress.com