Farewell to the Horse

Oct 3, 2024 3:27 PM

Author:Ulrich Raulff,Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp

THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR

'A beautiful and thoughtful exploration of the role of the horse in creating our world' James Rebanks

'Scintillating, exhilarating ... you have never read a book like it ... a new way of considering history' Observer

The relationship between horses and humans is an ancient, profound and complex one. For millennia horses provided the strength and speed that humans lacked. How we travelled, farmed and fought was dictated by the needs of this extraordinary animal. And then, suddenly, in the 20th century the links were broken and the millions of horses that shared our existence almost vanished, eking out a marginal existence on race-tracks and pony clubs.

Farewell to the Horse is an engaging, brilliantly written and moving discussion of what horses once meant to us. Cities, farmland, entire industries were once shaped as much by the needs of horses as humans. The intervention of horses was fundamental in countless historical events. They were sculpted, painted, cherished, admired; they were thrashed, abused and exposed to terrible danger. From the Roman Empire to the Napoleonic Empire every world-conqueror needed to be shown on a horse. Tolstoy once reckoned that he had cumulatively spent some nine years of his life on horseback.

Ulrich Raulff's book, a bestseller in Germany, is a superb monument to the endlessly various creature who has so often shared and shaped our fate.

Reviews

A beautiful and thoughtful exploration of the role of the horse in creating our world... lyrical and creative...I very much enjoyed it. Some of the scenes in it will stay with me for a long time to come

—— James Rebanks

Intellectual and passionate ... Raulff's material is gloriously diverse ... [a] refined and ambitious book

—— The Sunday Times

It becomes evident within three paragraphs that you have never read a book like it ... his writerly pace is exhilarating

—— Kate Kellaway , Observer

Covers ground as rapidly and thrillingly as a Cossack horseman. It lays bare a dizzying network of connections and repeatedly offers unfamiliar approached to old themes

—— Literary Review

Sex, violence and 6,000 years of horse power... an elegy to the way horses have galloped through our culture'

—— Melanie Reid , The Times

This is not the Pony Club Manual or a trot through the more familiar sights of equestrian art history; it's Kafka, Aby Warburg, Tolstoy, psychoanalytic theory, Nietzsche and bleak monochrome photos in the style of Sebald. This epic enterprise is relieved by Raulff's spare, vivid style and deep learning

—— Susannah Forrest , Literary Review

A brilliant, entertaining tour-de-force

—— Die Zeit

Amazing insights sweep through the book - an entrancing history packed with stories

—— Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Great cultural history

—— Der Tagesspiegel

Ulrich Raulff is a wonderful storyteller

—— Südwestrundfunk

A fabulous book

—— Uli Hufen

An exciting and entertaining ride through various landscapes

—— Harry Nutt

Strange and fascinating . . . A sweeping cultural history, more kaleidoscopic than totale, as bibliographical as it is historical . . . Farewell to the Horse is a whirlwind that seems capable of drawing into its vortex almost anyone who ever thought of a horse.

—— Verlyn Klinkenborg , New York Review of Books

A remarkably nimble, creative thinker . . . Raulff's text is somehow dreamy but not sentimental . . . A brilliant examination of our complicated and violently unilateral relationship with Equus caballus . . . Though this book is about horses, it is just as much about thinking as a devotional act.

—— C. E. Morgan , New York Times Book Review

A compassionate and critical look at medicine and illness from both a doctor’s and a patient’s perspective... Awdish has written a unique and insightful memoir.

—— Publishers Weekly

Fascinating facts combined with hilarious ridiculousness.

—— Tony Robinson

Beautifully written, funny and jam-packed with astonishing information.

—— John Lloyd

A compendium of intriguing and revelatory animal information - you may find dolphins go down in your estimation, while hyenas go up ...

—— Robin Ince

An eye opening , informative and hysterical history of our ideas about animals - very funny !

—— Chris Packham

Clever, thoughtful, accessible and, above all, so SO funny.

—— Henry Nicholls

Endlessly fascinating.

—— Bill Bryson

Lucy Cooke’s modern bestiary is as well-informed as you’d expect from an Oxford zoologist. It’s also downright funny ...

—— Richard Dawkins

Brilliantly researched and hilariously informative

—— William Hartson , Daily Express

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