…brilliant…[Raulff] uses a flair for web-thinking to connect seemingly disparate facts into fresh epiphanies on subjects that we might otherwise find overly familiar…Raulff constructs not just painterly layers of complementary information but wreaths of interconnected facts. In short order, he is capable of braiding together Degas, the thoroughbred, Cromwell, Francis Galton (Darwin's cousin), George Stubbs, anatomical theaters and Muybridge, all before securing the wreath to itself with Degas again. Every few pages, he works this magic. Along these circuitous routes, his prose takes air, floating on the sheer joy of investigation and rumination…As a savvy historian, Raulff refuses to capitulate to simplistic chronological organization and instead relays events without forcing them into artificial sequence. His approach feels unusual on the page, but deeply familiar, even natural, because it mimics the discursive gymnastics of the mind…The result of this technique is that Raulff's text is somehow dreamy but not sentimental; labyrinthine but not frustrating. Interestingly, it produces a portrait of pathos without being overtly elegiac…It's a powerful display of one writer's willingness to train his mind with unusual care on our coexistence with an animal that has unduly borne both our "physical and metaphorical burdens." Our world needs more writers willing to do work of this kind…fastening together rich new connections before they are lost forever. Bravo to those unwilling to let history…slip away unnoticed. Bravo to Ulrich Raulff.
Horses and humans share an ancient, profoundly complex relationship. Once our most indispensable companions, horses were for millennia essential in helping build our cities, farms, and industries. But during the twentieth century, in an increasingly mechanized society, they began to disappear from human history. In this esoteric and rich tribute, award-winning historian Ulrich Raulff chronicles the dramatic story of this most spectacular creature, thoroughly examining how they've been muses and brothers in arms, neglected and sacrificed in war yet memorialized in paintings, sculpture, and novels-and ultimately marginalized on racetracks and in pony clubs. Elegiac and absorbing, Farewell to the Horse paints a stunning panorama of a world shaped by hooves, and the imprint left on humankind.
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Farewell to the Horse: A Cultural History
Horses and humans share an ancient, profoundly complex relationship. Once our most indispensable companions, horses were for millennia essential in helping build our cities, farms, and industries. But during the twentieth century, in an increasingly mechanized society, they began to disappear from human history. In this esoteric and rich tribute, award-winning historian Ulrich Raulff chronicles the dramatic story of this most spectacular creature, thoroughly examining how they've been muses and brothers in arms, neglected and sacrificed in war yet memorialized in paintings, sculpture, and novels-and ultimately marginalized on racetracks and in pony clubs. Elegiac and absorbing, Farewell to the Horse paints a stunning panorama of a world shaped by hooves, and the imprint left on humankind.
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Farewell to the Horse: A Cultural History
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940170232567 |
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Publisher: | HighBridge Company |
Publication date: | 02/13/2018 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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