96 books like The Horse in the City

By Clay McShane, Joel Tarr,

Here are 96 books that The Horse in the City fans have personally recommended if you like The Horse in the City. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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

Ann Greene Author Of Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

From my list on horses in history.

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.

Ann's book list on horses in history

Ann Greene Why did Ann 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 Author Of Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

From my list on horses in history.

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.

Ann's book list on horses in history

Ann Greene Why did Ann 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 Author Of Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

From my list on horses in history.

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.

Ann's book list on horses in history

Ann Greene Why did Ann 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 Author Of Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America

From my list on horses in history.

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.

Ann's book list on horses in history

Ann Greene Why did Ann 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.

By Stephen Budiansky,

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of Animal City: The Domestication of America

Catherine McNeur Author Of Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City

From my list on histories of nature in unexpected places.

Why am I passionate about this?

Catherine McNeur is an award-winning historian, interested in the ways that issues of power impact how humans understand and transform their environments. She has long found the books, art, and other creative expressions that mischievously push at the edges of what we consider “nature” compelling, whether it’s a celebration of the beauty of weeds in an abandoned lot or nature writing on the flora in our guts. After having written about social and environmental battles in New York City, she is now researching the lives, work, and erasure of two forgotten female scientists from nineteenth-century Philadelphia. She lives in Oregon where she is a professor at Portland State University.

Catherine's book list on histories of nature in unexpected places

Catherine McNeur Why did Catherine love this book?

I love the way Andrew Robichaud brings to life the animal ghosts that haunt our modern cities. In ways that we often forget today, animals were integral to the development of urban spaces in ways that were much more visible in the nineteenth century, whether they were horses pulling carriages or pigs and cows herded down the street toward slaughterhouses. The laws governing how cities were organized typically began with debates over where animals were welcome. Robichaud does a great job of recreating the ecologically diverse nineteenth-century American cities in ways that make it easier to understand urban spaces and our relationships with animals today.

By Andrew A. Robichaud,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Why do America's cities look the way they do? If we want to know the answer, we should start by looking at our relationship with animals.

Americans once lived alongside animals. They raised them, worked them, ate them, and lived off their products. This was true not just in rural areas but also in cities, which were crowded with livestock and beasts of burden. But as urban areas grew in the nineteenth century, these relationships changed. Slaughterhouses, dairies, and hog ranches receded into suburbs and hinterlands. Milk and meat increasingly came from stores, while the family cow and pig gave…


Book cover of Animal Metropolis: Histories of Human-Animal Relations in Canada

Keri Cronin Author Of Art for Animals

From my list on animal history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a historian of visual culture, and my work explores the ways images can shape and challenge dominant ideas about other species. The ways we choose to represent certain animals (or not) can have important consequences, both in terms of environmental issues but also in terms of the wellbeing of individual animals. Digging deeper into these histories can make us aware that the categories we like to put animals in can shift and change depending on the time period and place. As we confront increasingly urgent climate and environmental issues, understanding these dynamics will be even more important than ever.

Keri's book list on animal history

Keri Cronin Why did Keri love this book?

This book is full of engaging and thoughtful essays focusing on the ways that human-animal histories have shaped so many aspects of life in Canada. From the horses on the streets of Montreal in the 19th century to more recent exploration of captive animals in Vancouver, this book presents an important range of topics that ask the reader to think differently about the histories, spaces, and species they may think they know. I also really appreciate that the University of Calgary Press has published an open access version of this book.

By Joanna Dean (editor), Darcy Ingram (editor), Christabelle Sethna (editor)

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Animal Metropolis brings a Canadian perspective to the growing field of animal history, ranging across species and cities, from the beavers who engineered Stanley Park to the carthorses who shaped the city of Montreal. Some essays consider animals as spectacle: orca captivity in Vancouver, polar bear tourism in Churchill, Manitoba, fish on display in the Dominion Fisheries Museum, and the racialized memory of Jumbo the elephant in St. Thomas, Ontario. Others examine the bodily intimacies of shared urban spaces: the regulation of rabid dogs in Banff, the maternal politics of pure milk in Hamilton and the circulation of tetanus bacilli…


Book cover of Nature Obscura: A City's Hidden Natural World

Kristin Poling Author Of Germany’s Urban Frontiers: Nature and History on the Edge of the Nineteenth-Century City

From my list on nature in the city.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been both a nature lover and committed urbanite, and those twin passions have shaped my approach to history. My very first published writing (when I was ten years old) was an essay about a willow tree in an urban park I loved in Minneapolis, MN. Now, as a historian, I have written about guerrilla gardening in the shadow of the Berlin wall, forestry outside Detroit, and working-class foraging practices in the nineteenth century. My interest in urban nature remains not just academic, but personal. On weekends, you’ll find me mapping native and invasive species with my ten-year-old son along the River Rouge in Dearborn, MI.

Kristin's book list on nature in the city

Kristin Poling Why did Kristin love this book?

From microscopic tardigrades in the moss on her roof to a cacophony of crows in an Ikea parking lot, Brenner finds teeming nonhuman life in the most overlooked urban spaces of her Seattle hometown. Her pocket-sized safaris combine personal discovery and well-researched investigations into history, science, and policy. Most importantly, by shifting our vision to see all the non-human life that is already here, Brenner gives her readers an accessible, everyday antidote to the supposed “nature deficit” of cities.

By Kelly Brenner,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

2021 PNBA Book Awards finalist
2021 Washington State Book Awards finalist
With wonder and a sense of humor, Nature Obscura author Kelly Brenner aims to help us rediscover our connection to the natural world that is just outside our front door--we just need to know where to look.

Through explorations of a rich and varied urban landscape, Brenner reveals the complex micro-habitats and surprising nature found in the middle of a city. In her hometown of Seattle, which has plowed down hills, cut through the land to connect fresh- and saltwater, and paved over much of the rest, she exposes…


Book cover of The Highway and the City

Alex Marshall Author Of How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken

From my list on why cities and suburbs function the way they do.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been drawn to community, meaning how people get together, live, love, and support each other. That love drew me into caring about cities, in all their various forms, because cities are places for people to gather and build lives together. This can be in an Italian hilltown from the 1000 AD, a 15th-century neighborhood in Barcelona, an elegant street on the Upper East Side of New York City, or a subdivision near a highway interchange in Phoenix. Once I started caring about cities, I started asking why these places are the way they are, and this produced my book.

Alex's book list on why cities and suburbs function the way they do

Alex Marshall Why did Alex love this book?

Accurate prophets are few, but in the title essay of this book, the critic Lewis Mumford tells with eerie precedence just how the United States of America will be transformed, often for the worse, by the overinvestment in highways and the neglect of railroads.

Mumford originally wrote this for The New Yorker, where he was the in-house architecture critic. As the country was going all in on the new Interstate Highway System, Mumford was one of the few who foresaw the flaws of this one-dimensional megaproject. 

By Lewis Mumford,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A collection of essays by the respected social commentator on some problems faced by cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Paris, on the architecture of Saarinen, Le Corbusier, and Wright, and on city and highway planning.


Book cover of Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times

Robert G. Parkinson Author Of Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier

From my list on the intersection of fiction and history.

Why am I passionate about this?

Fiction has a way of capturing people, places, and phenomena that often elude source-bound historians. As I say in my book, you feel the weight of all the terrible things Colonel Kurtz has done in central Africa far more by his whispering “the horror, the horror” than I, as a historian, could possibly convey by listing them out and analyzing them. That feel–especially what contingency feels like–is something historians should seek out and try to pull into their craft of writing. Getting used to and using fiction to help historians see and feel the past is a worthwhile endeavor. 

Robert's book list on the intersection of fiction and history

Robert G. Parkinson Why did Robert love this book?

Another Melville and another unusual one. Melville died broke and mostly forgotten. Lewis Mumford, a now mostly forgotten literary critic, is largely responsible for resuscitating Melville’s reputation in the early 20th century.

Sachs, an environmental historian who can really write, has penned a very unconventional, twinned biography of Melville and Mumford–the chapters go from one to the other, a style that takes some getting used to–that explores what it was about Melville’s dark vision of human nature, climate change, and capitalism that spoke to Mumford, and what it has to say to us.  

By Aaron Sachs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Up from the Depths as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography

A double portrait of two of America's most influential writers that reveals the surprising connections between them-and their uncanny relevance to our age of crisis

Up from the Depths tells the interconnected stories of two of the most important writers in American history-the novelist and poet Herman Melville (1819-1891) and one of his earliest biographers, the literary critic and historian Lewis Mumford (1895-1990). Deftly cutting back and forth between the writers, Aaron Sachs reveals the surprising resonances between their lives, work, and troubled times-and their uncanny relevance in our own…


Book cover of The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects

Michael Batty Author Of The Computable City: Histories, Technologies, Stories, Predictions

From my list on cities that are not what they seem.

Why am I passionate about this?

There are as many ways of thinking about cities as there are people who live in them, and by the end of this century, it is clear we will all be living in cities of one size or another. Cities are in effect the crucibles where all technological and cultural change takes place. They are the drivers of prosperity while also the harbingers of chaos, decline, and war. What makes them fascinating is that as soon as we begin to peel back the layers that compose the city, our understanding of them begins to change: they metamorphose into different conceptions where there is no agreement as to what they are or what they might become.

Michael's book list on cities that are not what they seem

Michael Batty Why did Michael love this book?

Mumford’s book provides one of the widest templates of the way cities have evolved since pre-history, contrasting how culture and technologies are critical to the way cities grow and change. His idea that cities grow organically can be contrasted with what all our authors in this quintet of books are asking.

This book gives a great overview of how cities have developed. Read it first, dip into it, and use it as a reference, but only read it if you know nothing about cities. If you know about cities, dip into it and use it to understand the other books in this list.

By Lewis Mumford,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The City in History as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD. A definitive classic, Lewis Mumford's massive historical study brings together a wide array of evidence — from the earliest group habitats to medieval towns to the modern centers of commerce — to show how the urban form has changed throughout human civilization.
Mumford explores the factors that made Greek cities uniques and offers a controversial view of the Roman city concept. He explains how the role of monasticism influenced Christian towns and how mercanitile capitalism shapes the modern city today.
The City in History remains a powerfully influential work, one that has shaped the…


Book cover of Horses in Society: A Story of Animal Breeding and Marketing Culture, 1800-1920
Book cover of Riding High: Horses, Humans and History in South Africa
Book cover of Never Caught Twice: Horse Stealing in Western Nebraska, 1850-1890

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