Horse Travel and Horse Warfare: A Conversation with Historian Gary Shaw

We’re back! After a long hiatus due to professional/ life stuff, I’m happy to share with you my interview with Gary Shaw, Professor of History and Medieval Studies at Wesleyan University. Continuing our series on horses, we explore another angle of the long-standing relationship between humans and horses, looking at the role that horses played in human transportation and warfare. As we brace ourselves for the impact of A.I., I find it instructive to look back to a time when our transportation and military technologies depended on other animals. It’s impossible to fully comprehend the impact of the shift from horse and buggy to car, but, as we grapple with the scope and limitations of our humanity - and, I would argue, with our animality -, thinking back to a time when other animals were more fully embedded in our lives may serve as a useful counterpart and help us in our attempts to make sense of our present moment.  In our conversation, Gary Shaw and I discuss two areas of his scholarship - the development of horse travel in twelfth-century Europe and the role that horses, such as the Duke of Wellington’s horse Copenhagen, played in battle during the period of the Napoleonic wars.