Nance, Susan (Author)
University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date: 2020
Language: English
Physical Details: 312
"What would rodeo look like if we took it as a record, not of human triumph and resilience, but of human imperfection and stubbornness?” asks animal historian Susan Nance. Against the backdrop of the larger histories of ranching, cattle, horses, and the environment in the West, this book explores how the evolution of rodeo has reflected rural western beliefs and assumptions about the natural world that have led to environmental crises and served the beef empire. By unearthing behind-the-scenes stories of rodeo animals as diverse individuals, this book lays bare contradictions within rodeo and the rural West. For almost 150 years, westerners have used rodeo to symbolically reenact their struggles with animals and the land as uniformly progressive and triumphant. Nance upends that view with accounts of individual animals that reveal how diligently rodeo people have worked to make livestock into surrogates for the trials of rural life in the West and the violence in its history. Western horses and cattle were more than just props. Rodeo reclaims their lived history through compelling stories of anonymous roping steers and calves who inspired reform of the sport, such as the famed but abused bucker Steamboat, and the many broncs and bulls, famous or not, who unknowingly built an industry. Rodeo is a dangerous sport that reveals many westerners as people proudly tolerant of risk and violence, and ready to impose these values on livestock. In Rodeo: An Animal History, Nance pushes past standard histories and the sport’s publicity to show how rodeo was shot through with stubbornness and human failing as much as fortitude and community spirit.
...MoreReview Laura J. Arata (2023) Review of "Rodeo: An Animal History". Agricultural History (pp. 146-151).
Review Tracey Hanshew (2021) Review of "Rodeo: An Animal History". American Historical Review (pp. 1651-1652).
Similar Citations
Article
Margaret E. Derry;
(2022)
North American Beef Breeding and the Modernization of the International Cattle Breeding Industries, 1950–2000
(/p/isis/citation/CBB035744952/)
Chapter
Monzote, Reinaldo Funes;
(2013)
Animal Labor and Protection in Cuba: Changes in Relationships with Animals in the Nineteenth Century
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001422679/)
Article
Nicole Welk-Joerger;
(2022)
The Business with “Bugs”: Ruminology and the Commercial Feed Industry in the United States
(/p/isis/citation/CBB620126843/)
Book
Michael Weeks;
(2022)
Cattle Beet Capital: Making Industrial Agriculture in Northern Colorado
(/p/isis/citation/CBB786069434/)
Book
Laura R. Barraclough;
(2019)
Charros: How Mexican Cowboys Are Remapping Race and American Identity
(/p/isis/citation/CBB655803377/)
Article
Mishra, Saurabh;
(2011)
Beasts, Murrains, and the British Raj: Reassessing Colonial Medicine in India from the Veterinary Perspective, 1860--1900
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001250088/)
Article
Bennett, Lyn;
Abbott, Scott;
(2014)
Barbed and Dangerous: Constructing the Meaning of Barbed Wire in Late Nineteenth-Century America
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001421775/)
Chapter
Timothy Dawson;
(2020)
Baggage Animals – The Neglected Equines. An Introductory Survey of Their Varieties, Uses, and Equipping
(/p/isis/citation/CBB054565523/)
Chapter
Rota, Giorgio;
(2009)
The Horses of the Shah: Some Remarks on the Organization of the Safavid Royal Stables, Mainly Based on Three Persian Handbooks of Administrative Practice
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001500523/)
Book
Greene, Ann Norton;
(2008)
Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001550729/)
Article
Duccio Vanni;
(2017)
Sulle "Ferite d'arma da fuoco negli equidi in guerra-note pratiche" (1917) di Arturo Galli
(/p/isis/citation/CBB019539341/)
Chapter
Druml, Thomas;
(2009)
Functional Traits in Early Horse Breeds of Mongolia, India and China from the Perspective of Animal Breeding
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001500520/)
Article
Nicole Welk-Joerger;
(October 2023)
Maintaining Bovine
(/p/isis/citation/CBB162599679/)
Article
Lucy Beech;
Tamar Novick;
(October 2023)
Sex Panic and the Productive Infertility of the Freemartin
(/p/isis/citation/CBB338619456/)
Article
Tamar Novick;
(October 2023)
Introducing Bovine Regimes: When Animals Become Technologies
(/p/isis/citation/CBB007741307/)
Book
Kathryn Cornell Dolan;
(2021)
Cattle Country: Livestock in the Cultural Imagination
(/p/isis/citation/CBB886330079/)
Article
Thamarai Selvan Kannan;
(October 2023)
Skin and Sound: Caring for and Crafting Bovine Hide in South India
(/p/isis/citation/CBB529821269/)
Book
Professor Catrin Rutland;
(2021)
The Cow: A Natural and Cultural History
(/p/isis/citation/CBB765541394/)
Article
Insoll, Timothy;
Clack, Timothy;
Rege, Olirege;
(2015)
Mursi Ox Modification in the Lower Omo Valley and the Interpretation of Cattle Rock Art in Ethiopia
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001422585/)
Chapter
Miller, Laura J.;
(2003)
Secondary Products and Urbanism in South Asia: The Evidence for Traction at Harappa
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001422468/)
Be the first to comment!