Animal City

A welcome historical exploration of the ways in which human-animal relationships have played ongoing, and oftentimes disturbing, roles in urban development...Engaging and unique.--Julie Urbanik Journal of Historical Geography In ways that can seem unimaginable today, urban animals played a major role in shaping how nineteenth-century Americans debated laws, considered the boundaries of brutality, transformed economies and environments, and ultimately understood themselves. Through masterful storytelling and deep historical research, Andrew Robichaud paints this ecologically diverse urban world in vivid colors, showing readers that we cannot understand modern cities without acknowledging their controversial and often invisible animal past.--Catherine McNeur, author of Taming Manhattan: Environmental Battles in the Antebellum City In this outstanding history, Robichaud powerfully recreates the snarling, barking, and mooing past where milk cows, stray dogs, slaughterhouse cattle, and working horses were part of daily life. Erasing animals from our streets and homes to improve sanitation and diminish cruelty, he argues, made it easier to justify their continued exploitation. Animal City is an eloquent reminder that this older urban menagerie persists even if we cannot always recognize our fellow residents.--Matthew Klingle, author of Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle Deeply researched and supremely analytical, with a compelling strength of narrative purpose, Animal City is a superb history. Robichaud has written the kind of book that will show even the most skeptical readers that animal history is key to grasping American history.--Louis Warren, author of God's Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America Based on exhaustive research, Animal City provides a rich description of nineteenth-century human and animal lives, including the landscapes, laws, economies, and institutions that shaped them. Robichaud has made a landmark contribution to how we understand this formative period in American urban and animal history.--Peter Alagona, author of After the Grizzly: Endangered Species and the Politics of Place in California