How the world’s oldest asset secretly shapes our modern economy
In
The Land Trap
, Mike Bird—Wall Street editor at
The Economist
—reveals how this ancient asset still exerts outsize influence over the modern world. From the speculative land grabs of colonial America to China's real estate crisis today, Bird shows how fortunes are built—and destroyed—on the bedrock of land.
Tracing three centuries of history, Bird explores how land quietly became the linchpin of the global banking system, driving everything from soaring housing prices to rising geopolitical tensisons. As governments wrestle with inequality and land grows ever scarcer,
offers a powerful new framework for understanding the hidden force behind today's most urgent challenges.
This is the book for anyone who wants to see beyond markets and money to the real game being played on a foundation as old as civilization itself. Timely, provocative, and essential,
will change how you see the ground beneath your feet.