| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.4

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Margaret E. Derry. Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800–1920. Buffalo, N.Y.: University of Toronto Press. Pp. xvii, 302. $60.00.

Horses, once the ubiquitous engines of trade and agriculture, are now used only for sport and pleasure. When the working horse disappeared from modern society, it did so "almost ... before anyone really knew it had happened" (p. 232), observes Margaret E. Derry. As a result of early expectations that the horse would persist despite technological change (initially confirmed by the continued need of horses even in a world filled with railways and motor cars), and perhaps also because of the horse's very ubiquity, there seemed to be no need to record the horse's history at this pivotal moment, making more difficult the modern historian's job of recovering the story of how and why the working horse disappeared. Derry plumbs a wealth of contemporary commentary—debates on breeding practices, evidence of the government's influence on the production of horses for specific needs in war and peace time, and the voices of various players in the horse industry—to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of this transitional moment for the horse's social, political, and cultural roles. Like her previous book, Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies and Arabian Horses since 1800 (2003), this one uses the limited example of humans' relationship to a specific animal to draw a wide-ranging and suggestive portrait of the ideas and material developments that have dictated the shape of the present. It should be of interest not only to specialists in animal studies but also to those interested in international trade of the period, and in the history of science.

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