Description
Book SynopsisThis radical reinterpretation of Ottoman and Arab influences on horsemanship and breeding sheds new light on English national identity, as illustrated in such classic works as Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and George Stubbs's portrait of Whistlejacket.
Trade ReviewThis is a fascinating thesis, absorbing in its many insights and detours, and lovingly argued. -- Allan Mallinson Country Life 2009 Only someone who is both a cultural historian and a devoted horse person could have written this remarkably engaging, wide-ranging book. Landry... tells in clear, vivid, fascinating detail of developments that will engage cultural and literary historians and animal fanciers. Choice 2009 Donna Landry has produced a book of clean organization and admirable coherence. She writes with telling precision, as well as first-hand acquaintance with all horsey matters. -- Pat Rogers Times Literary Supplement 2010 An important and most welcome contribution to our understanding of the multi-faceted impact of horses on humans and focuses on the significant influence of Eastern imports on English culture... Johns Hopkins University press have published a book with exemplary production values to complement the content. -- Peter Harrigan Arabian Studies 2010 A timely and valuable contribution to the recently burgeoning field of animality and animal studies in the early modern period. -- Richard Nash Eighteenth-Century Studies 2010 It would make a surprising story and support claims that animal studies can make important contributions to the study of history and culture. -- Nicholas Russell American Historical Review 2009 A multi-faceted work that will serve as a landmark in the emerging field of animal and cultural studies. -- Peter Edwards Agricultural History 2010 All historians of the early modern period would benefit from reading this multi-faceted and fascinating book. -- Mike Huggins Journal of Social History 2010
Table of ContentsIntroduction: What the Horses Said: An Equine History
1. Horsemanship in the British Isles before the Eastern Invasion
2. The Making of the English Hunting Seat
3. Steal of a Turk: Tracking in Bloodstock
4. About a Horse: The Bloody Shouldered Arabian
5. The Noble Brute: Contradictions in Equine Ideology, East and West
Epilogue: Her Ladyship's Arabian: Aftermaths
Acknowledgments
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
