Michelle Graf's Reviews > The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity

Thanks to NetGalley and Dutton for the ARC.

I have never been a horse girl growing up, I'd say that I have a healthy dose of fear and respect for the absolute units that they are. I picked this up on a whim because I like to read nonfiction about very niche subjects. I balked at the page count (500 is a lot for me nowadays) and worried about how I'd get through it. Imagine my surprise at finding the history of the horse and its influence on civilization really engaging! Especially with the BC empires beyond Egypt and Greece, I don't know nearly enough on those, and this book devoted a whole section to how they expanded and fell along with how domesticated horses transformed their military strategies. Mind you, this is still a dense history book, and I was starting to get tired by the World Wars section. Otherwise, it's a fascinating deep dive into how much human history depended on our connection to the horse. It was well researched and explained the events really well for the average reader.