THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Book
From New York Times bestselling author of The Mosquito, the incredible story of how the horse shaped human history Timothy C. Winegard’s
The Horse is an epic history unlike any other. Its story begins more than 5,500 years ago on the windswept grasslands of the Eurasian Steppe; when one human tamed one horse, an unbreakable bond was forged and the future of humanity was instantly rewritten, placing the reins of destiny firmly in human hands.
Since that pivotal day, the horse has carried the history of civilizations on its powerful back. For millennia it was the primary mode of transportation, an essential farming machine, a steadfast companion, and a formidable weapon of war. Possessing a unique combination of size, speed, strength, and stamina, the horse dominated every facet of human life and shaped the very scope of human ambition. And we still live among its galloping shadows.
Horses revolutionized the way we hunted, traded, traveled, farmed, fought, worshipped, and interacted. They fundamentally reshaped the human genome and the world’s linguistic map. They determined international borders, molded cultures, fueled economies, and built global superpowers. They decided the destinies of conquerors and empires. And they were vectors of lethal disease and contributed to lifesaving medical innovations. Horses even inspired architecture, invention, furniture, and fashion. From the thundering cavalry charges of Alexander the Great to the streets of New York during the Great Manure Crisis of 1894 and beyond, horses have shaped both the grand arc of history and our everyday lives.
Driven by fascinating revelations and fast-paced storytelling,
The Horse is a riveting narrative of this noble animal’s unrivaled and enduring reign across human history. To know the horse is to understand the world.
This book presents "a chronicle of the horse's relationship with the peoples of the world--as a mode of transportation, a means of farming, a companion, and a weapon of war. It covers the profound impact of the species in an extraordinary story of evolution, revealing just how much of our existence we owe to this amazing animal. Six thousand years ago, humans domesticated the horse, and have relied on it as a key tool in everything from military influence to agriculture. The horse's strength and speed is crucial to its role in the history of humankind, lending a hand in expanding trade networks and colonial conquests, and acting as an agent of disease and even as a source of energy. Horses are markers of civilization, and their populations have been used to track people's movement and settlement around the globe"--
