Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies

This new era of upheaval—call it the Great Reshuffle—brought revolutionary change, setting societies and their inhabitants on new trajectories. The reallocation of land from large landowners to workers began in the modern era with the French Revolution and spread across Europe with the 1848 revolutions, the world wars, and the introduction of communism in Eastern Europe. Notwithstanding this increase, archaeological evidence indicates that the slow shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture in most societies was associated with initial declines in dietary and overall health, lifespans, and leisure. Australia is recognizing Aboriginal rights to ancestral land across the country after long-standing policies that sought to push Aboriginals aside, exploit them, and finally to assimilate them into mainstream Australian culture.