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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“Raulff gallops through time and space, art criticism, philosophy, and economics, plaiting in tales of Kafka, Tolstoy, and Comanche, the hard-drinking stallion who was the only non-Indian survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. His is a category-defying, often dizzying, piece of writing.”
— Economist (London)
“Reading Farewell to the Horse gives the same feeling of elation and abandon that comes when you are lucky enough to ride a horse at a gallop across open land…Dazzling.”
— Wall Street Journal“Raulff has composed nothing less than a requiem mass for this long-suffering, noble creature…an eloquent epitaph for the horse’s long relevance to our world.”
— Washington Post“A sweeping cultural history…as bibliographical as it is historical.”
— New York Review of BooksBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Matthew Waterson was born in Los Angeles. After university in Boston and drama school in London, he now lives in NY where he works in theater and voice over. In voice work he has been heard on ESPN, ABC, Speed Channel, Logo, and inDemand. He is the radio voice of Twinings Tea and the voice of Sabra Dips.