How the world’s oldest asset secretly shapes our modern economy In The Land Trap Mike Bird—
The Economist ’s Wall Street editor—pulls back the curtain on how this ancient asset exerts
outsize influence over the modern world. With masterful insight into global finance Bird
reveals how land has quietly become the linchpin of the world’s banking system affecting
everything from soaring housing prices to geopolitical tensions. From the speculative land
grabs of colonial America to China’s modern-day real estate crisis Bird shows how fortunes are
built—or destroyed—all on the bedrock of land. As governments wrestle with inequality and land
becomes ever scarcer The Land Trap offers a bold new framework for understanding the driving
force behind today’s most pressing challenges. Eye-opening and timely Bird’s analysis unveils
how land remains the ultimate currency of power—and the key to economic survival in an
increasingly fragile world. This is the book for anyone who wants to see beyond markets and
money to the hidden game being played on a foundation as old as civilization itself. Timely
provocative and essential The Land Trap will change how you see the ground beneath your feet.
