From the recent spate of equine deaths on racetracks to protests demanding the removal of mounted Confederate soldier statues to the success and appeal of War Horse, there is no question that horses still play a role in our lives—though fewer and fewer of us actually interact with them. In Precarious Partners, Kari Weil takes readers back to a time in France when horses were an inescapable part of daily life. This was a time when horse ownership became an attainable dream not just for soldiers but also for middle-class children; when natural historians argued about animal intelligence; when the prevalence of horse beatings led to the first animal protection laws; and when the combined magnificence and abuse of these animals inspired artists, writers, and riders alike.
Weil traces the evolving partnerships established between French citizens and their horses through this era. She considers the newly designed “races” of workhorses who carried men from the battlefield to the hippodrome, lugged heavy loads through the boulevards, or paraded women riders, amazones, in the parks or circus halls—as well as those unfortunate horses who found their fate on a dinner plate. Moving between literature, painting, natural philosophy, popular cartoons, sports manuals, and tracts of public hygiene, Precarious Partners traces the changing social, political, and emotional relations with these charismatic creatures who straddled conceptions of pet and livestock in nineteenth-century France.
Preface
Introduction: The Most Beautiful Conquest of Man?
1. Heads or Tails? Painting History with a Horse
2. Putting the Horse before Descartes: Sensibility and the War on Pity
3. Making Horsework Visible: Domestication and Labor from Buffon to Bonheur
4. Let Them Eat Horse
5. Purebreds and Amazons: Race, Gender, and Species from the Second Empire to the Third Republic
6. “The Man on Horseback”: From Military Might to Circus Sports
7. Animal Magnetism, Affective Influence, and Moral Dressage
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante : Anne Simon (3 mars 2021). Kari Weil | Precarious Partners – Horses and Their Humans in 19th-Century France | U. of Chicago Press | 2020. Animots. Consulté le 13 février 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/b6v3
Créé en 2011, le carnet Animots, au croisement des Sciences humaines et des Sciences du vivant, souhaite fédérer la recherche en zoopoétique et proposer une veille sur l’actualité littéraire, artistique et scientifique sur l’animalité et les interactions entre les vivants et le monde. Dirigé par Anne Simon, le programme Animots a été subventionné par l’ANR entre 2010 et 2014, qui l’a alors sélectionné comme projet-phare en Sciences humaines et sociales. Son carnet est désormais soutenu par l’unité République des savoirs (CNRS/ENS/Collège de France – PSL).
WECOLME TO THE ANIMOTS NOTEBOOK
Created in 2011, Animots is a research notebook at the crossroads of the Humanities and the Life Sciences. It aims to bring together research in zoopoetics and to provide ongoing coverage of literary, artistic, and scientific developments relating to animality and to interactions between living beings and the world. Directed by Anne Simon, the Animots programme was funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) from 2010 to 2014, and was selected as a flagship project in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The notebook is now supported by the research unit République des savoirs (Centre national de la recherche scientifique / École normale supérieure / Collège de France – Université Paris Sciences et Lettres).
Visuels Animots : crédits image Cosa Dhers.
Bienvenue sur le carnet Animots
Créé en 2011, le carnet Animots, au croisement des Sciences humaines et des Sciences du vivant, souhaite fédérer la recherche en zoopoétique et proposer une veille sur l’actualité littéraire, artistique et scientifique sur l’animalité et les interactions entre les vivants et le monde. Dirigé par Anne Simon, le programme Animots a été subventionné par l’ANR entre 2010 et 2014, qui l’a alors sélectionné comme projet-phare en Sciences humaines et sociales. Son carnet est désormais soutenu par l’unité République des savoirs (CNRS/ENS/Collège de France – PSL).
WECOLME TO THE ANIMOTS NOTEBOOK
Created in 2011, Animots is a research notebook at the crossroads of the Humanities and the Life Sciences. It aims to bring together research in zoopoetics and to provide ongoing coverage of literary, artistic, and scientific developments relating to animality and to interactions between living beings and the world. Directed by Anne Simon, the Animots programme was funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) from 2010 to 2014, and was selected as a flagship project in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The notebook is now supported by the research unit République des savoirs (Centre national de la recherche scientifique / École normale supérieure / Collège de France – Université Paris Sciences et Lettres).
Visuels Animots : crédits image Cosa Dhers.
Illustration
Logo et visuel du bandeau : détail de « Promenade Aérienne De Prédateurs Désamorcés » par Cosa Dhers, avec son aimable autorisation.