E221 - Land Power w/ Michael Albertus

American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison

History, Politics, News

4.8 • 705 Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Subscribe now to skip the ads. Michael Albertus, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, joins the program to talk about his book Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies. The group explores notions of land from archaeological evidence thousands of years ago, the enclosure movement of the medieval era, the European mindset vs those of indigenous peoples in the era of colonization, South Africa land redistribution, gender in Canadian homesteading, how changing notions of land play into larger histories of race, the postwar of concept of “land to the tiller,” and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to American Prestige. To listen ad-free, you can subscribe at Americanprostagepod.com. Find the link in our show notes.
0:11.0	This episode is brought to you by Simplysafe. And this SimplySafe is the sound of peace of mind.
0:20.7	SimplySafe sensors, HD cameras and 24-7 security monitoring protect your home inside and out against break-ins, fires, water leaks and more.
0:32.6	So you can relax. Visit simplysafe.co.uk That's kind of conversation to your soul. That's, and welcome to American Prestige. I'm Danny Bessner, here as always with my friend and comrade, Derek Davidson.
1:29.0	And we're very excited to welcome to the podcast today. Michael Arburtis. Michael's a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and he's also the author of Land Power. Who hasn't, who doesn't, and how that determines the fate of societies. Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me on the show. It's a pleasure to be here. So let's start with the first question. What made you want to investigate the issue of land?
1:33.4	Obviously, it's very clear in our contemporary society that the ownership of land, it's clearly related to economic class and wealth accrual.
1:41.7	But why did you want to decide, why did you decide to examine this from such a
1:46.2	macro historical perspective? Land is one of these things that is all around us. We encounter it every
1:53.4	day. We walk on it all the time. We see it everywhere we travel. But we often don't think about
1:59.7	its ownership and about how the, how it's changed hands
2:04.1	over time and how that shapes our modern world. So the reason I was interested in writing this
2:09.0	book was to, you know, really uncover what I would consider to be either, you know, an untold
2:15.4	story about how land has really shaped
2:18.6	not only human history, but also how we live and breathe in the very present.
2:23.6	And one of the things that I really appreciate your book is you start in the deep history.
2:27.6	So why don't we begin there with 12,000 years ago, humans decide to settle on land permanently.
2:35.0	How does this-
2:37.0	Recount the entire history of homo sapiens.
2:40.0	How does land-
2:41.0	six billion years ago?
2:43.0	But so what happened 12,000 years ago
2:47.0	and how did that sort of the beginnings of human history reshape how the species related to land itself?
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 9 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.