Equestrian Cultures

A dozen well-balanced essays present valuable case studies in a range of critical investigations of horse-human relations, spanning the last three centuries of Western culture. -- Modern Philology Equestrian Cultures is a highly original work that will make significant contributions to a number of disciplines: art history, economic history, literary studies, animal studies, and environmental studies. The range of topics, material, and methodologies engaged by the essays is extensive, stimulating, and characterized by extremely strong scholarship. There is much to be learned and much to enjoy in this book. -- Pia F. Cuneo, University of Arizona The varied and richly nuanced essays in Equestrian Cultures explore the horse's instrumental role in constructing modernity and navigating its social, political, economic and symbolic dimensions. From bits to bloodlines, from the fine arts to commerce and industry, as dead flesh or living cyborg: the horse's presence in, and influence on, discourses and technologies of modernity is given innovative and theoretically grounded analysis that gives us an important new set of insights into the horse's multiple and endlessly malleable nature and into the vicissitudes of its fortunes over the last few centuries. Equestrian Cultures will deepen and complicate current scholarship by restoring the animal presence at the heart of human historical change. -- Karen Raber, University of Mississippi