Who Owns England?
How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land, and How to Take It Back
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Who Owns England?
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Narrated by:
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Malk Williams
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By:
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Guy Shrubsole
About this listen
‘A formidable, brave and important book’ Robert Macfarlane
Who owns England?
Behind this simple question lies this country’s oldest and best-kept secret. This is the history of how England’s 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, England’s 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, it’s 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.
It’s time to expose the truth about who owns England – and finally take back our green and pleasant land.
©2019 Guy Shrubsole (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
Critic 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 Shrubsole’s 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, Shrubsole’s 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 it’s hard not to feel that it’s 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
What listeners say about Who Owns England?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ann
- 04-02-21
A must read
Well researched and presented. An evidence based work showing, amongst other things, the monstrous lie that focused “take back control” solely on borders. Ownership of England is narrowly within the old and new money classes but more is owned by off shore corporations and foreign nationals. Wither our control when governments care so little?
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 21-05-23
Time to eat the rich
Brilliant and essential.
Needed a good edit to get rid of background noise but otherwise great listen
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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- Giles Rocholl
- 01-11-19
Packed with useful information.
This is a great book packed with information everyone should know so they can understand the dynamics and who owns what across England. If it were re edited taking out the very left wing bias and represented with just the facts I believe it would be much more powerful and could encourage greater widespread support for more transparency. I am not sure I agree with the conclusions of taking back all the land and redistributing it amongst the masses but the fact that only a small number of people own a large amount of land could be useful to pressure them to re wild what they have for the benefit of animals, plants, insects and the population and be a one part of a solution to climate change at least in this country. Banning grouse shooting and re wilding the 550,000 acres should be a law asap.
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19 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- Richard S
- 06-06-23
Fascinating and Thought-Provoking
The ownership of land is a key battlefront in politics, and sometimes it feels that even asking the question "who owns that?" is a political act. This book therefore automatically has a slight left-leaning edge to it, but I really have to say that it's much more balanced than I was expecting given some of the reviews.
The crown, old money, new money and corporates, the government, and little old us; the stories are all here. Every strand is compellingly explored. Alongside the expected coverage of enclosure, grouse moors and the landed gentry, the tales of government ownership were particularly illuminating: I hadn't really considered the environmental damage of long-term woodland mismanagement and I'd never heard of Tyneham, the village the government just decided to steal in WWII.
I really enjoyed this and I bought a paper copy for my dad, to enrage him.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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- samstopit
- 11-10-20
Excellent and important
I was fascinated and amazed by this book and have thought about it a lot in the months since I read / listened to it. I was quite incensed by the fact that the land isn't looked after by the people who own it, especially as they own it on such tenuous grounds. It answered a lot of questions that I didn't know I needed to ask. Such an important and interesting book, I highly recommend it.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David
- 04-05-21
Very important info but repetitive throughout
A lovely idea but people with money won't give up privilege so easily. I can never see these suggestions becoming reality. What people say and do are very different.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Eva Davison
- 16-01-23
A real eye opener.
A very interesting book. Packed with facts about how the feudal system still remains.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Sonia
- 31-10-24
An absolute eye-opener, brilliant.
Wow! you realise there’s a lot of corruption within business and who owns what, but gosh you don’t realise how much and how far this goes back.
Absolutely brilliant listen, would recommend🌟
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Dr. N. WOODRUFF
- 30-12-22
Once you start you can't put it down
A well informed and enjoyable experience to know more about our nation and those who own it
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Asad Ali
- 08-11-20
Fantastic book, well read
It was a fantastic book with an lot of information all well referenced.
Might be worth skipping the last chapter as it's endnotes and difficult to follow.
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7 people found this helpful