Hiyo, Flicka!

J. Edward Chamberlin’s Horse: How the Horse Has Shaped Civilizations is a good-looking specimen, its handsome jacket graced both by a white horse running in the surf and an Egyptian charioteer. Crack this 14- by 21- centimetre beauty open, bury your nose into the spine and it smells nearly as good as a horse fresh from fields of sun and wind. Cynthia Dunne’s design, text and illustrations are a subdued pleasure in tones of grey and black.

This is an ambitious work, placing the horse in both myth and history throughout the ages in peace and in war, in religion and art from near the dawn of time to the Kentucky Derby, so it is of interest not only to horse fanciers but also to readers with interests ranging widely through anthropology, theology, geography and the history of warfare—from The Golden Bough to Horses Hitches and Rocky Trails.

Although it wanders through time and throughout the world, the focal point of this book, and...