This book is a vivid, far-reaching analysis of our concept of property ownership, from 16th-century feudalism to the present day. It tells powerful stories - of life in the developer-led boomtown of Gurugram in India, of the struggles to form black communities in Missouri and Georgia, of a giant experiment in co-operative living in the Bronx, of the theatrics of developer-kings like President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and the Trump family. Above all, this book asks how we have come to view our homes not as a natural human right, but as investments - and it offers hope for how things could be better, with reform that might enable the social wealth of property to be returned to society.