The War Over Rent

Historian, professor and data scientist Jo Guldi turns the David and Goliath story of the 19th century Irish Land Wars to show how a small band of revolutionary Irish peasants—pioneering nonviolent activism and minting ideas like rent control and land transfer—took on the British Empire and won their land back from absentee landlords. The War Over Rent is one part gripping, under-told history, one part recipe for agitation. The victory of what historians term the “Irish Land War” is breathtaking in its implications. In the 19th century, Irish peasants took on the British Empire and won, wresting stolen land back from absentee landlords, and reshaping the world around them. In terms of access to police, the state, capital, land, or courts—the traditional implements of power—Irish activists garnered inconceivable wins from rent control to the wholesale transfer of land from rich to poor. How did they do it? And is the success of the Land War repeatable today? With clear echoes in our own times of wealth disparity and housing crises around the word, this surprising and magnificent Irish history can teach us how to fairly redistribute land without killing our landlords today.