American Property : A History of How, Why, and What We Own

What is property? Stuart Banner here offers a guided tour through the many manifestations, and innumerable uses, of property throughout American history. From indigenous culture to our genes, from one's celebrity to Internet content, American Property reveals how our ideas of ownership evolve to suit our ever-changing needs. In This Tightly Written Book, Banner, A Professor Of Law At Ucla, Tackles An Admittedly Expansive Topic, Illustrating That Our Ideas About What Property Is, How It Is Regulated, And What It Is Meant To Do Are In Constant Flux And Have Been Historically Contested. Partly An Examination Of Law, Partly Of Culture, Politics, Economics, And Even Religion, Banner Successfully Shows How Our Notions Of Property And So-called Natural Property In Essence Sketch The Shifting Borders Of What Americans Deem Appropriate Government Regulation. Our Conceptions Of Property Have Always Been Molded To Serve Our Particular Purposes, Banner Writes, Using Examples Ranging From Zoning Laws (which Were Often Used To Enforce Racial And Economic Boundaries); Eminent Domain And Personal Property Disputes; As Well As New, Thorny Notions Of Intellectual Property In The Digital Age (digital Copying Makes Some Property Rights Harder To Enforce, He Notes, But Creates New Opportunities As Well). Banner Even Addresses Biological Breakthroughs (can A Company Own A Genetically Engineered Hybrid Or A Cell Line?). It's A Huge Amount Of History And Analysis That Ably Proves A Simple Thesis: The Debates Have Never Been About Property In The Abstract, Banner Writes. Property Has Always Been A Means, Rather Than An End.--publishers Weekly. Lost Property -- The Rise Of Intellectual Property -- A Bundle Of Rights -- Owning The News -- People, Not Things -- Owning Sound -- Owning Fame -- From The Tenement To The Condominium -- The Law Of The Land -- Owning Wavelengths -- The New Property -- Owning Life -- Property Resurgent -- The End Of Property? Stuart Banner. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. In America, we are eager to claim ownership: our homes, our ideas, our organs, even our own celebrity. But beneath our nation's proprietary longing looms a troublesome question: what does it mean to own something? More simply: what is property? The question is at the heart of many contemporary controversies, including disputes over who owns everything from genetic material to indigenous culture to music and film on the Internet. To decide if and when genes or culture or digits are a kind of property that can be possessed, we must grapple with the nature of property itself. How does it originate? What purposes does it serve? Is it a natural right or one created by law? Accessible and mercifully free of legal jargon, American Property reveals the perpetual challenge of answering these questions, as new forms of property have emerged in response to technological and cultural change, and as ideas about the appropriate scope of government regulation have shifted. This first comprehensive history of property in the United States is a masterly guided tour through a contested human institution that touches all aspects of our lives and desires. Stuart Banner shows that property exists to serve a broad set of purposes, constantly in flux, that render the idea of property itself inconstant. Despite our ideals of ownership, property has always been a means toward other ends. What property signifies and what property is, we come to see, has consistently changed to match the world we want to acquire. - Publisher.