Synopses & Reviews
A fresh legal argument on what it means to own land, navigating issues of eminent domain, sprawl, and conservation
Recent Supreme Court cases and clashes between conservationists and private-property-rights advocates have stimulated countless lawsuits and ballot initiatives, yet many people are unsure what to think. In On Private Property, Eric Freyfogle explores this critical issue, recounting the surprising history of private landownership, probing its complex links to liberty, and ultimately showing why a new understanding is needed if private property is to fulfill its key functions. He concludes with a provocative new vision of landownership, at once respectful of private interests, responsive to communal needs, and tailored to todays realities.
With this important book, conversations about landowner responsibility can finally move beyond bumper-sticker debates.
“Freyfogles new book, which probably should have been titled Roll Over, John Locke, is just what the public debate over property rights needs: straight talk, and an invitation to open a conversation about the real issues.” Joseph L. Sax, author of Playing Darts with a Rembrandt
“This beautifully articulated book, at once bold and thoughtful, is bound to become a classic in American constitutional and property law.” Charles Wilkinson, author of Crossing the Next Meridian
Synopsis
A fresh legal argument on what it means to own land, navigating issues of eminent domain, sprawl, and conservation Recent Supreme Court cases and clashes between conservationists and private-property-rights advocates have stimulated countless lawsuits and ballot initiatives, yet many people are unsure what to think. In
On Private Property, Eric Freyfogle explores this critical issue, recounting the surprising history of private landownership, probing its complex links to liberty, and ultimately showing why a new understanding is needed if private property is to fulfill its key functions. He concludes with a provocative new vision of landownership, at once respectful of private interests, responsive to communal needs, and tailored to today's realities. With this important book, conversations about landowner responsibility can finally move beyond bumper-sticker debates.
Synopsis
Urban sprawl. Disappearing wetlands. Historic preservation. Eminent domain. These and related land-use issues have put private-property rights on the public agenda in a contentious, visible way. In this provocative book, legal scholar and conservationist Eric T. Freyfogle presents the private-property debate in a surprising new light while suggesting how we can both respect private property and achieve communal goals.
Freyfogle's argument culminates in an intriguing Landowner Bill of Rightsfar different from property-rights measures now being discussed.
About the Author
Eric T. Freyfogle has written widely on the many links between people and land, and on the need for a more land-sensitive culture, including the recent books Agrarianism and the Good Society and Why Conservation Is Failing and How It Can Regain Ground. His nonlegal writings have appeared in various publications, from Conservation Biology, Wild Earth, and Orion to Dissent and The New York Times. Freyfogle has appeared widely as a speaker, not just at academic gatherings, but at land-related conferences sponsored by major federal agencies, major national conservation organizations, and such professional organizations as the Society of American Foresters, the George Wright Society, and the Natural Areas Association. In January 2004 he was appointed editor of the Leopold Conservation Papers Project, an effort to edit and publish in thematic volumes the conservation writings of Aldo Leopold. He teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law at Urbana-Champaign.