Enfilade

From Manchester UP:

Thomas Almeroth-Williams, City of Beasts: How Animals Shaped Georgian London (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019), 328 pages, ISBN: 978-1526126351, £25.

This book explores the role of animals—horses, cattle, sheep, pigs and dogs—in shaping Georgian London. Moving away from the philosophical, fictional, and humanitarian sources used by previous animal studies, it focuses on evidence of tangible, dung-bespattered interactions between real people and animals, drawn from legal, parish, commercial, newspaper, and private records. This approach opens up new perspectives on unfamiliar or misunderstood metropolitan spaces, activities, social types, relationships, and cultural developments. Ultimately, the book challenges traditional assumptions about the industrial, agricultural, and consumer revolutions, as well as key aspects of the city’s culture, social relations, and physical development. It will be stimulating reading for students and professional scholars of urban, social, economic, agricultural, industrial, architectural, and environmental history.

Tom Almeroth-Williams is Research Associate in the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York

C O N T E N T S

Introduction
1  Mill Horse
2  Draught Horse
3  Animal Husbandry
4  Meat on the Hoof
5  Consuming Horses
6  Horsing Around
7  Watchdogs
Conclusion

Index