Free the Land

How We Can Fight Poverty and Climate Chaos

By: Audrea Lim

Narrated by: Bahni Turpin

An eye-opening examination of how treating land as a source of profit has a massive impact on racial inequality and the housing, gentrification, and environmental crises.

Climate change, gentrification, racial discrimination, and corporate greed are some of the most urgent problems facing our society. They are traditionally treated as unrelated issues, but they all share a common root: the ownership of land. Environmental journalist Audrea Lim began to notice these connections when she reported on the Native communities leading the fight against oil drilling on their lands in the Canadian tar sands near her hometown of Calgary, but before long, she saw the essential role of land commodification and private ownership everywhere she looked: in foreclosure-racked suburbs and gentrifying cities like New York City; among poor, small farmers struggling to keep their businesses afloat; and in low-income communities attempting to resist mines and industrial development on their lands, only to find that their voices counted less than those of shareholders living thousands of miles away.

Free The Land is a captivating and beautifully rendered look at the ways that our relationship to the land is the core cause of the most pressing justice issues in North America. Lim expertly weaves together seemingly disparate themes into a unified theory of social justice, describes how the land ownership system developed over the centuries, and presents original reporting from a wide range of activists and policy makers to illustrate the profound impact it continues to have on our society today.

Ultimately, this book offers a message of hope: by approaching these socioeconomic issues holistically, we can begin to imagine just alternatives to fossil-fueled capitalism, new ways to build community, and a more sustainable, equitable world.

©2024 Audrea Lim (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“Golden Voice Bahni Turpin offers a solid, clear narration. She captures the author's outrage but also her hope for the future if humankind can learn from the past. Turpin breaks up the author's occasional complex sentences into smaller parts, making passages written for the eye easier to follow by ear. The author capably supports her primary thesis that our fractured relationship with the land is the core cause of the most pressing justice issues in North America. Turpin, in turn, makes these arguments accessible to listeners.” —AudioFile Magazine

“In this provocatively titled exploration of land ownership in the U.S., journalist Lim does an excellent job of showing just how complicated the topic of private property can be...With this timely, perceptive, smart, and immensely important inquiry, Lim proves herself to be a writer to watch.” —Booklist (starred)

"Audrea Lim’s magnificent, provocative Free the Land illuminates how American ideas about land ownership contribute to social injustice...Lim has been thinking long and deeply about these issues, and her research has taken her to Native reservations, Puerto Rico, crumbling New York City neighborhoods and aspirational communities in Minnesota and Georgia. Her meetings and interviews with people exploring alternative ways of thinking about land ownership make for fascinating reading." —Bookpage (starred)