Overview

From the recent spate of equine deaths on racetracks to protests demanding the removal of mounted Confederate soldier statues to the success and appeal of War Horse, there is no question that horses still play a role in our lives—though fewer and fewer of us actually interact with them. In Precarious Partners, Kari Weil takes readers back to a time in France when horses were an inescapable part of daily life. This was a time when horse ownership became an attainable dream not just for soldiers but also for middle-class children; when natural historians argued about animal intelligence; when the prevalence of horse beatings led to the first animal protection laws; and when the combined magnificence and abuse of these animals inspired artists, writers, and riders alike.   Weil traces the evolving partnerships established between French citizens and their horses through this era. She considers the newly designed “races” of workhorses who carried men from the battlefield to the hippodrome, lugged heavy loads through the boulevards, or paraded women riders, amazones, in the parks or circus halls—as well as those unfortunate horses who found their fate on a dinner plate. Moving between literature, painting, natural philosophy, popular cartoons, sports manuals, and tracts of public hygiene, Precarious Partners traces the changing social, political, and emotional relations with these charismatic creatures who straddled conceptions of pet and livestock in nineteenth-century France.

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9780226686370

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Reviews

Weil's gentle prose effortlessly unfolds the most complex overlapping of human and equine histories. Her finely detailed research holds our most alert attention in that she demonstrates how equestrian worlds produce intricate formations of race, gender, sexuality, and species within and beyond their ostensible domain. Precarious Partners is intensely readable and leaves the reader wanting to follow its every thread. --Lynn Turner, coeditor of The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies Precarious Partners brilliantly ties horse-human relations to questions of race, gender, class, and species in nineteenth-century France. From 'women on horseback' to pity for horses to the consumption of horsemeat; and from natural history to art history, philosophy, literature, and politics, Weil's wide-ranging and interdisciplinary study makes an outstanding contribution to French studies, cultural history, and animal studies. --Peter Sahlins, author of 1668: The Year of the Animal in France

A rich and sophisticated analysis that uses materials from literary fiction to fine art, ephemera and philosophy. -- History Today Precarious Partners brilliantly ties horse-human relations to questions of race, gender, class, and species in nineteenth-century France. From 'women on horseback' to pity for horses to the consumption of horsemeat; and from natural history to art history, philosophy, literature, and politics, Weil's wide-ranging and interdisciplinary study makes an outstanding contribution to French studies, cultural history, and animal studies. -- Peter Sahlins, author of 1668: The Year of the Animal in France Weil's gentle prose effortlessly unfolds the most complex overlapping of human and equine histories. Her finely detailed research holds our most alert attention in that she demonstrates how equestrian worlds produce intricate formations of race, gender, sexuality, and species within and beyond their ostensible domain. Precarious Partners is intensely readable and leaves the reader wanting to follow its every thread. -- Lynn Turner, coeditor of The Edinburgh Companion to Animal Studies

Author Information

Kari Weil is University Professor of Letters at Wesleyan University. She is the author of Thinking Animals: Why Animal Studies Now and Androgyny and the Denial of Difference.

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