Book Reviews

231

© 2007 The AuthorsJournal compilation

© 2007 The New Zealand Geographical Society

Who owns the world: The hidden facts

behind landownership

Kevin Cahill. Mainstream Publishing, Edin-burgh and London, 2006. 640 pp. ISBN978 184596 158 9.

This is a big book on a big subject, a book ofsome importance and not a little self-importance.The dust jacket describes it as ‘a breathtakingtome of huge political, economic and socialimportance. It will revolutionize our under-standing of our planet, its history and its land.’I doubt it, but the task undertaken certainlycalls for boldness, confidence, even arrogance.It may be summed up as to explore the processwhereby ‘the (human) race was kept off theland for all those preceding (i.e. pre-1900)millennia and how they are kept off it now’(p. 17). This is not as extreme a perspective asit sounds, not so far removed from that ofHenry George and even Mark Twain whoseresponse to the question why land was sosought after and safe as an investment was:‘they stopped making it’. Cahill argues a classwar case of considerable substance that thescarcity is contrived by élites rather thanintrinsic. I would not entirely agree, but greatlandowners in particular have been tenaciouslysuccessful in holding onto land over most ofhistory and in diverse cultural and politicalcircumstances as Cahill’s figures affirm. Onemodern thinker stands out in the author’sestimation, Hernando de Soto, and in particular

The Mystery of Capital

(2001), a controversialbook disliked by many development theoristsand which argues about the primacy of justand enforceable property rights (and pre-eminently land rights) in the developmentalprocess. Cahill is very critical of the real propertylaws of most western democracies. The USA,however, he regards as a notable exception.

By now it will be evident that this is a con-troversial book on a matter which ought to becentral to geographical scholarship. How comethat a geographer has not already undertakensuch a task while so much of our scholarshipconcerns itself with trivia? Of course theinstitutional environment has become hostile –would anyone dare propose such an enterprise,11 years in execution, to most funding agencies,even Marsden? It remains significant that thisbook comes not out of university geography

but is the work of a journalist and systemsanalyst with an English degree and a Fellow-ship of the Royal Geographical Society.

The book is in two parts: overview andanalysis, and detailed inventory. The first is asomewhat eclectic account of landownershipacross the world, the flavour of which isindicated by chapter heads such as: ‘The largestlandowner on earth – by far’ (the Queen ofcourse); ‘Who owns Europe and who paysthem?’ (a mere handful – and the EU); and‘Ireland – serfs not citizens.’ The author is anIrishman trailing his coat for at best a fight andat least an argument. That is what scholarshipshould be all about, argumentative rather thandefinitive. The process is vital but it is at timesone eyed, ignoring inconvenient facts. Landownership and tenure in 18th and 19th centuryBritain was grossly unfair, but it provided theframework within which modern temperatezone agriculture in an originally sustainableform was created – and for export. Ireland’spresent fabulous prosperity (by contrast withthe 60 years following partition) owes more tothe inflow of funds from Europe than to landtenure.

The second part sets out the facts of thematter, again in eccentric order but ordernevertheless. This is a huge task: for eachcountry (and US states), first the basic factsare given, second the background (usually mainlyhistorical), and third ‘how the country isowned’. How this last is handled varies greatlyfrom country to country. As précis of usuallycomplex situations, the pieces are impressive;but how accurate are they? Thus, in my viewof three examples: the New Zealand entry(just under 500 words) is reasonably accurate;likewise that for the UK (but it does not domuch to explain Scottish differences, and takesas long to cover Jersey, Guernsey and the Isleof Man – not actually part of the UK – as therest); and the Burma entry does its best withan impossible task while depending too muchon one very obscure source and so understatingthe imperfect but yet substantial security ofpeasant occupancy. What causes concern iserrors of detail or of interpretation. NewZealand is described as ‘allegedly independent’from 1947 (p. 299), Australia from 1901 andCanada from 1867. In each case, a constitu-tionally important date is favoured over others

232

Book Reviews

© 2007 The AuthorsJournal compilation

© 2007 The New Zealand Geographical Society

of practical land tenure significance. (My copyalso had Auckland as New Zealand’s capitalcrossed out and replaced by Wellington in theauthor’s hand. Was everyone thus privileged?)Detail is the devil of every exercise and it doesmatter.

Two final points: the bibliography highlightskey works, but the detailed entries are ofuneven quality and usefulness. Why not a fewkey items for each country? The long index isalmost wholly of proper names and weak onconcepts and ideas, the usual consequence ofundue computer dependence. It is also occa-sionally wrong: de Soto is not to be found onpage 19. This is a useful, opinionated, stimulatingbut not always reliable reference work. Itfocuses on a topic which ought to be central togeographical scholarship and deserves to beexecuted at a national level. Might the NewZealand Geographical Society be prepared tosponsor

Who Owns New Zealand?

Peter Perry

Department of GeographyUniversity of Canterbury

XXX Book ReviewBook ReviewBook ReviewBook Review

Maps as mediated seeing: Fundamentals

of cartography

Gerald Fremlin and Arthur H. Robinson.Trafford, Victoria, B.C., Canada, Revisededition, 2005. 292 pp. ISBN 1-4120-6682-4.

Maps as Mediated Seeing

is, to put it as brieflyas possible, a lengthy argument that topo-graphical and thematic maps are mediationsbetween objective reality and the viewer’sreality. Maps are not seen as a form oflanguage; they are more than a direct trans-mission of ideas and concepts, they functionthrough gestalt psychology. The objective ofgood map design is to provide a visuallyappealing, highly legible image that conveysinformation successfully.

Arthur H. Robinson had a large impact oncartography. In 1952, his seminal cartographywork,

The Look of Maps: An Examination ofCartographic Design

, was published. He was asignificant force in map design research, withthe notable personal achievement of designingthe Robinson projection for the globe. This

was used for many years by the US NationalGeographic Society. Robinson died in 2004 atthe age of 90;

Maps as Mediated Seeing

isa post-retirement project for one of his pastgraduate students, Gerald Fremlin.

Robinson’s

The Look of Maps

contained noactual geographical maps and neither does

Maps as Mediated Seeing

. There are a few linediagrams, but no colour illustrations, nortopographic or thematic maps. The diagramsare surprisingly difficult to follow (see p. 215,fig. 6 for example). The authors have includedup to half a page of explanatory text in somecases in order to describe what the diagram istrying to convey (not vice versa). As someonewith a background in publication illustrationin various academic fields, I find this some-what incongruous with the cartographicdesign arguments detailed in this book;Robinson’s early artistic background makesthis doubly surprising. It is also interesting tonote that the work was initially published inthe Journal of the Canadian CartographicAssociation,

Cartographica

, and that Fremlinopenly admits that it was reported to be a‘hard read’ and was not seen as overlyuser-friendly.

Chapter one contains nine short essays, eachdealing with an idea, such the definition andunderstanding of ‘topography’. Chapters twoto seven discuss topographical map design anddefinition. Chapters eight to eleven discussthematic map design. Topographic and the-matic map designs are the two main themes ofthe book. Chapter twelve discusses the use ofpictures and ‘non-map graphics’ in maps. Thisis a very brief chapter which describes suchthings as ‘iconic regions maps’: for example, apicture of a moose on a map may indicate thisis ‘moose country’. The final chapter is com-prised of six short essays which Robinsonsays were included for technical referenceand were difficult to incorporate into the maintext. An afterword looks at the future of car-tography, albeit rather briefly, with particularreference to GIS technology. GIS is seen asoffering opportunities for map design researchnot previously available, the speed of execu-tion and direct control available to the cartogra-pher being paramount in this. The authorshave not attempted to discuss in any realdepth the use of maps in digital media such as