Hoof Beats

"Taylor’s persuasive narrative leaves you with the humbling feeling of how integral horses have been to our civilisation. On their backs we have built empires."

— Daily Mail

"A comprehensive and enlightening overview of the history of horsemanship as a global phenomenon; Hoof Beats offers a unique perspective, focusing on the horse’s point of view rather than the human, which is a refreshing departure from the usual anthropocentric view of history."

— Antiquity

"The depth of research that went into writing Hoof Beats is staggering, and Taylor does an exceptional job of delivering a work that is not only rich in detail but entertaining. It’s an engaging and important story."

— Cowgirl Magazine

"William T. Taylor is well qualified to write this book. He has specialised in equine archaeology at the University of Colorado Museum and has, with the help of others, dug many of the ancient tombs that he describes in his book. That horses, both and individually, have shaped human history cannot be disputed. They have also had, and perhaps still have, a symbolic importance to humans. Why else would we still be able to gaze at the skeleton of Napoleon’s horse, Marengo, in the Army Museum or visit the tomb of Wellington’s grey, Copenhagen, at Strathfield Saye?"

— Salisbury Review

"Hoof Beats is a book that will appeal to both horse people and history people, and for those of us that are interested in both, this is a must read."

— Inner Asia

"A strong incorporation of archaeological research into the four millennia of human domestication of the horse and shines in its clear voice and readability."

— Journal of World History

“New archaeological methods are promising unparalleled insight into the deep past and the transformative impact of equine domestication. . . .Hoof Beats draws its insights primarily from ‘the bones of ancient horses themselves’ and is refreshingly free from the romanticism and nostalgia often coloring equestrian writing. Rigorous but friendly, the book will appeal to scholars and general audiences alike interested in technology and social transformation, pastoralism, and Indigenous history.”

— Animal History

“Hoof Beats casts the history of horses as an intersection in
the long evolutionary history of horses and humans that facilitated
the expansion of human cultures and civilizations and of permanent
horse habitats first in Eurasia and Northern Africa and later on all continents except Antarctica. Taylor draws evidence from both archaeological studies of equine societies and archeozoological studies of
ancient horse skeletons to better understand how the evolutionary histories
of horses and humans have repeatedly intersected.”
 

— Journal of World History