Читать книгу Nine-tenths of the Law - Hannah Dobbz - Страница 2

“Considering how many people all over the world have been involved in squatting vacant properties, it is amazing to me that there are so few good books on the subject. Hannah Dobbz’s book is a welcome addition. She deals with a wide range of approaches from the Native American Seizure of Alcatraz Island, to New York Squatters and Homesteaders of the 1980s, to the housing actions led by Occupy Wall Street today. She does not simply advocate but asks important philosophical questions about these tendencies. With America’s foreclosure crisis generating a landscape full of empty houses, one can see the rise of an even bigger squatters movement on the horizon. To those engaged in such activity, and those considering it, this book will be a valuable resource.”—Seth Tobocman, author of Understanding the Crash and Disaster and Resistance

“Millions of foreclosed homes and abandoned buildings on one hand; millions of Americans desperate for decent shelter on the other. Hannah Dobbz makes the necessary addition of resources and needs in a brilliant history of squatting in the USA.”—Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums

“This is the thinking person’s guidebook to urban and suburban squatting. Hannah Dobbz’s book is about property in America, this ‘history created all the time.’ This book lays it all out, from the days when George Washington was an illegal land speculator, property rights were entwined with genocide, and the Great Proprietors always won, to the resourceful new movements that have recently emerged to help people take empty houses during the ‘foreclosure age.’ Using her own life, recent news stories, and generations of scholarly work, Dobbz waltzes through the bizarreries of the U.S. property system, from the iron logic of property speculation to the madness of ‘arson for profit.’

Her book tells the hidden histories we badly need to know, from lone wolf opportunists to political activists acting selflessly to house others. We read about the big city stories—from New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco—and navigate the entanglements of the foreclosure crisis, how ‘people remain homeless as homes remain peopleless’ in the doomed suburbs of America. Rent-free living is no bed of roses, as squatters become the new villains for U.S. media, even as they face landlords setting fires and thugs doing evictions for hire. Learn why most of them don’t care to own.

Dobbz’ book does more than just tell the story of squatting in the USA—although that alone makes it a vital read. For those who aren’t quite ready for off-the-grid outlaw living, Dobbz explains land trusts and co-op ownership, along with the romance (and grime) of collective living. If you’re thinking of squatting—or just want to know more about legal theory of property and home ownership—this book is for you.”—Alan W. Moore, author of Art Gangs: Protest and Counterculture in New York City