Accessibly written and featuring full-color photographs and illustrations throughout, The Rise of Horses is the complete chronicle of the evolution of the equids.
The horse has frequently been used as a classic example of long-term evolution because it possesses an extensive fossil record. This book synthesizes the large body of data and research relevant to an understanding of fossil horses from perspectives such as biology, geology, paleontology.
This book assesses the impact of the horse on human society from 4000 BC to 2000 AD, by first describing initial horse domestication on the Pontic-Caspian steppes and the early development of driving and riding technologies. It traces the radiation of newly mobile equestrian cultures across Europe, Asia, and North Africa. It then documents the transmission of steppe chariotry and cavalry to sedentary states, the high economic importance of the horse, and the socio-political evolution of equestrian empires, which from antiquity into the modern era expanded across continents.
Covering origins and evolution, communication and behavior, physiology and biomechanics, seasoned nature writer and horse owner Stephen Budiansky offers an accessible guide to the centuries-old mysteries and the latest findings about this marvelous creature. Line drawings throughout. 4-page color insert.
From the author of the New York Times–bestselling Guardians of Ga’hoole, a herd of horses surviving the wilds of the New World discovers an orphaned boy. For the filly Estrella, nothing is more precious than freedom. She was born at sea, aboard a ship of men sailing to the New World in search of gold. But Estrella and her herd escaped the conquerors and embarked on a journey across thousands of miles—braving harsh terrains and fierce predators—to a land where they can finally run wild. But now, an unforeseen danger threatens to destroy the pack. A boy with a special gift is lost in the wilderness, and only the horses can keep him alive. But to save the boy, the herd will risk galloping straight back into the hands—-and harnesses—of their captors. And so, it’s up to Estrella, the herd’s unlikely leader, to make a life-changing decision. Should the horses accept the orphan boy as one of their own? How do you choose between freedom and friendship? Praise for Horses of the Dawn: “As in works such as her Guardians of Ga’hoole series, Lasky uses animals to touch on very human issues.” —Kirkus Reviews “Lasky successfully fuses fantasy and fact as she gives her equine characters credible emotional depth and underscores the tensions and disparity between Old and New World sensibilities. It’s a haunting story of loss, self-discovery, survival, and homecoming.” —Publishers Weekly
Greene argues for recognition of horses’ critical contribution to the history of American energy and the rise of American industrial power, and a new understanding of the reasons for their replacement as prime movers.
Honorable mention, 2007 Lewis Mumford Prize, American Society of City and Regional Planning The nineteenth century was the golden age of the horse. In urban America, the indispensable horse provided the power for not only vehicles that moved freight, transported passengers, and fought fires but also equipment in breweries, mills, foundries, and machine shops. Clay McShane and Joel A. Tarr, prominent scholars of American urban life, here explore the critical role that the horse played in the growing nineteenth-century metropolis. Using such diverse sources as veterinary manuals, stable periodicals, teamster magazines, city newspapers, and agricultural yearbooks, they examine how the horses were housed and fed and how workers bred, trained, marketed, and employed their four-legged assets. Not omitting the problems of waste removal and corpse disposal, they touch on the municipal challenges of maintaining a safe and productive living environment for both horses and people and the rise of organizations like the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In addition to providing an insightful account of life and work in nineteenth-century urban America, The Horse in the City brings us to a richer understanding of how the animal fared in this unnatural and presumably uncomfortable setting.
For more than four thousand years, the horse and rider have been an integral part of warfare. Armed with weapons and accessories ranging from a simple javelin to the hand-held laser designator, the horse and rider have fought from the steppes of central Asia to the plains of North America. Understanding the employment of the military horse is key to understanding the successes and the limitations of military operations and campaigns throughout history. Over the centuries, horses have been used to pull chariots, support armor-laden knights, move scouts rapidly over harsh terrain, and carry waves of tightly formed cavalry. In War Horse: A History of the Military Horse and Rider, Louis A. DiMarco discusses all of the uses of horses in battle, including the Greek, Persian, and Roman cavalry, the medieval knight and his mount, the horse warriors-Huns, Mongols, Arabs, and Cossacks-the mounted formations of Frederick the Great and Napoleon, and mounted unconventional fighters, such as American Indians, the Boers, and partisans during World War II. The book also covers the weapons and forces which were developed to oppose horsemen, including longbowmen, pike armies, cannon, muskets, and machine guns. The development of organizations and tactics are addressed beginning with those of the chariot armies and traced through the evolution of cavalry formations from Alexander the Great to the Red Army of World War II. In addition, the author examines the training and equipping of the rider and details the types of horses used as military mounts at different points in history, the breeding systems that produced those horses, and the techniques used to train and control them. Finally, the book reviews the importance of the horse and rider to battle and military operations throughout history, and concludes with a survey of the current military use of horses. War Horse is a comprehensive look at this oldest and most important aspect of military history, the relationship between human and animal, a weapons system that has been central to warfare longer than any other.
Horses and horsemen played central roles in modern European warfare from the Renaissance to the Great War of 1914-1918, not only determining victory in battle, but also affecting the rise and fall of kingdoms and nations. When Shakespeare's Richard III cried, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" he attested to the importance of the warhorse in history and embedded the image of the warhorse in the cultural memory of the West. In Riding to Arms: A History of Horsemanship and Mounted Warfare, Charles Caramello examines the evolution of horsemanship—the training of horses and riders—and its relationship to the evolution of mounted warfare over four centuries. He explains how theories of horsemanship, navigating between art and utility, eventually settled on formal manège equitation merged with outdoor hunting equitation as the ideal combination for modern cavalry. He also addresses how the evolution of firepower and the advent of mechanized warfare eventually led to the end of horse cavalry. Riding to Arms tracks the history of horsemanship and cavalry through scores of primary texts ranging from Federico Grisone's Rules of Riding (1550) to Lt.-Colonel E.G. French's Good-Bye to Boot and Saddle (1951). It offers not only a history of horsemen, horse soldiers, and horses, but also a survey of the seminal texts that shaped that history.