Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in rural Wisconsin, I was crazy about both horses and books, so it’s not surprising that in grad school I became a horse historian. I found that writing about work horses linked my love of horses with my interests in technology and nature. The books I’ve chosen show how humans and horses shaped each other, society, the environment, and built the modern world. I hope readers browse (graze?) these books at their leisure and pleasure.


I wrote

Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

By Ann Greene,

Book cover of Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

What is my book about?

My book explores the rise of horse power between 1800 and 1920. A bird’s-eye view of nineteenth-century American society would…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century

Ann Greene Why did I love this book?

People don’t often think of horses as urban dwellers, but until the 1930s, American urban life depended on the thousands of horses who were residents, workers, commuters, and consumers. A banker in Boston encountered more horses than a cowboy in Colorado. Tarr and McShane describe urban horses as “living machines” used for mass transit, individual transportation, delivery, construction, manufacturing, and city services. The authors present a wealth of fascinating information and ideas about this relatively unknown aspect of history. The topical organization about how human urbanites obtained, used, supplied, doctored, managed, and maintained equine urbanites makes it easy for readers to dip into the sections of the book that catch their interest.

By Clay McShane, Joel Tarr,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Horse in the City as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The nineteenth century was the golden age of the horse. In urban America, the indispensable horse provided the power for not only vehicles that moved freight, transported passengers, and fought fires but also equipment in breweries, mills, foundries, and machine shops. Clay McShane and Joel A. Tarr, prominent scholars of American urban life, here explore the critical role that the horse played in the growing nineteenth-century metropolis. Using such diverse sources as veterinary manuals, stable periodicals, teamster magazines, city newspapers, and agricultural yearbooks, they examine how the horses were housed and fed and how workers bred, trained, marketed, and employed…


Book cover of Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800-1920

Ann Greene Why did I love this book?

This book traces the connections between horse breeding, biological science, international commerce, and foreign relations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Derry focuses on three large topics: the breeding of large draft horses, international military horse markets, and government breeding programs. The horse market was essentially a warhorse market. I love how this book shows that looking at something like horse breeding leads to a better understanding of things like political economy and foreign relations. Breeding beliefs and practices reveal a lot about society and culture, and the military material is fascinating. I also recommend the chapter on horse culture that looks at literature and painting (the author is herself an accomplished painter).

By Margaret E. Derry,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Horses in Society as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Before crude oil and the combustion engine, the industrialized world relied on a different kind of power - the power of the horse. Horses in Society is the story of horse production in the United States, Britain, and Canada at the height of the species' usefulness, the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century. Margaret E. Derry shows how horse breeding practices used during this period to heighten the value of the animals in the marketplace incorporated a intriguing cross section of influences, including Mendelism, eugenics, and Darwinism. Derry elucidates the increasingly complex horse world by looking at the international trade in…


Book cover of Riding High: Horses, Humans and History in South Africa

Ann Greene Why did I love this book?

Swart makes a big argument: studying horses changes how we understand all history. This sweeping overview shows that “The history of horses is the history of the desire for power” whether economic, political, military, social, or cultural. The history of horses in South Africa offers an interesting comparison with both the American West and the American South in terms of frontiers, the military, race, class, and gender. Swart is a lively, funny, and entertaining writer. The fieldwork she did for this book gives the reader a visceral sense of what South Africa is like as a place. What is there not to love about a book with chapter titles like “The Reins of Power” and “The Empire Rides Back?”

By Sandra Swart,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Riding High as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

0||The aim of this volume is to examine nascent movements, genre shifts, developing authors/playwrights and controversial themes as they emerged in both drama and theatre. The editors have focused on the essence of creative nexus of London from the end of the nineteenth century up to the beginning of the Great War (1914). The resultant study discusses Gordon Craig and production design, Wilde, Shaw, Synge, Pinero, Strindberg,Harley Granville Barker,Jones, Archer, Ford Madox Ford, D.H.Lawrence,Galsworthy, Sims, women playwrights, popular theatre among other topics. The work complements J.L.Styan s 3 volume Modern Drama in Theory and Practice and is more focused on…


Book cover of Never Caught Twice: Horse Stealing in Western Nebraska, 1850-1890

Ann Greene Why did I love this book?

Horse stealing was more than theft of valuable and essential property. Matthew Luckett explains that on the Great Plains horse stealing “destabilized communities, institutions, nations, diplomatic relations, and cross-cultural exchange.” Luckett challenges many popular notions about horse thieves (for starters, they were not hung).  There were different kinds of horse theft and horse thieves. Don’t be misled by “Nebraska” in the title—this book shows that horse stealing had regional and national repercussions.   Luckett is an engaging writer, and this book is extremely readable and filled with compelling stories. I particularly recommend the chapter “The Horse Wars” about the role of horses in the war the U.S. Army waged against the Indians. 

By Matthew S. Luckett,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Never Caught Twice as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

2021 Nebraska Book Award

Never Caught Twice presents the untold history of horse raiding and stealing on the Great Plains of western Nebraska. By investigating horse stealing by and from four plains groups-American Indians, the U.S. Army, ranchers and cowboys, and farmers-Matthew S. Luckett clarifies a widely misunderstood crime in Western mythology and shows that horse stealing transformed plains culture and settlement in fundamental and surprising ways.

From Lakota and Cheyenne horse raids to rustling gangs in the Sandhills, horse theft was widespread and devastating across the region. The horse's critical importance in both Native and white societies meant that…


Book cover of The Nature of Horses: Exploring Equine Evolution, Intelligence, and Behavior by Stephen Budiansky

Ann Greene Why did I love this book?

Horses are central to human history, but they have a history of their own. Budiansky explores equine history using biological science, animal behavior, and evolutionary history. How did horses evolve? How did horses and humans come together to co-evolve? Why do horses and humans get along so well? What are horses like? How do horses do what they do? After setting horses in historical context Budiansky takes up issues of communication, social behaviors, intelligence, the senses, the mechanics of movement, and the production of power and speed. This book shows that horses are not magical or mystical creatures, but serious fellow beings who have co-evolved with us through biology and history.

Explore my book 😀

Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

By Ann Greene,

Book cover of Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

What is my book about?

My book explores the rise of horse power between 1800 and 1920. A bird’s-eye view of nineteenth-century American society would show millions of horses supplying the energy for transportation, delivery, construction, maintenance, manufacturing, and agriculture, especially in the Northeast, Middle Atlantic, and Upper Midwest. Mechanization and steam power made it possible to use horses in unprecedented numbers. The Civil War also used thousands of equines to haul wagons and artillery. Animal power drove national development and expansion. The use of horse power declined when Americans began to make different social, cultural, and environmental choices about consuming energy.

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No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

Book cover of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

Rona Simmons Author Of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”

Rona's book list on World War II featuring the average Joe

What is my book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.

The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.

No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…

No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

What is this book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in horses, South Africa, and equestrianism?

Horses 125 books
South Africa 129 books
Equestrianism 35 books