“…The lengthy U.S. Department of Agriculture bibliography on landownership (Hannay et al 1953) frequently refers to the work of rural sociologists on land ownership issues at home and abroad. .Representatives of the domestic work are Bertrand (1962), Galpin and Hoag (1919), Knowlton (1970), Kolb and Brunner (1940), Lundquist and Carver (1927), Rankin (1932), Schmiedeler (1941), Smith (1940), Taylor (1927), and Taylor and Zimmerman (1923). Numerous human ecologists, environmental sociologists, and others have brought land ownership to the fore more recently and are cited in the papers contained in this issue.…”