Traces the complex lineages of thinking about private property from ancient to modern times. It challenges a number of deep-seated assumptions we make about the incontestability of private property by building a careful and extended account of where these assumptions came from. Just Property amply illustrates, by historical example, why property should be at the core of political theory. The strength of Just Property is in how it combines rigorous scholarship with witty commentary that quietly celebrates Rousseau's 'heroic failure' and sighs at the German Idealists' knack for starting in all the wrong places.