Ulrich Raulff is Director of the German Literature Archive in Marbach am Neckar. Previously, he was Literary Editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Managing Editor of the S3ddeutsche Zeitung. He has written books on Marc Bloch and Aby Warburg and won both the the Anna Kr3ger Prize and the Ernst Robert Curtius Prize for Essay Writing. His book on the influence of the German poet Stefan George was awarded the 2010 Leipzig Book Fair Prize.
A beautiful and thoughtful exploration of the role of the horse in
creating our world. It is shocking how recently we relied upon
horses, and as this tale is told, shocking how fast we have moved
away from our dependant working relationship with them. This fine
history book tells the story of that relationship in its final
century, and how horses still run through our culture in countless
ways, distant echoes of the pact we long had with them. Farewell to
the Horse is a grown-up, but also lyrical and creative, history
book, and I very much enjoyed it. Some of the scenes in it will
stay with me for a long time to come
*James Rebanks*
Intellectual and passionate ... Raulff's material is gloriously
diverse ... [a] refined and ambitious book
*The Sunday Times*
This unusual book is a series of airy, winging essays that alight
briefly on world history, art, literary criticism and
historiography before leaping on to make new, often surprising
connections. [...] This is not the Pony Club Manual or a trot
through the more familiar sights of equestrian art history; it's
Kafka, Aby Warburg, Tolstoy, psychoanalytic theory, Nietzsche and
bleak monochrome photos in the style of Sebald. This epic
enterprise is relieved by Raulff's spare, vivid style and deep
learning. He is as comfortable analysing the etymology of Pferd and
Ross as he is discussing the Chicago School, Clint Eastwood and the
Amazons, and he rarely loses his audience.
*Literary Review*
As you pick up the reins of this books - trying to get a sense of
what sort of ride it is to be - it becomes evident within three
paragraphs that you have never read a book like it. [...] Raulff's
ability to corral scattered equestrians in art, letters and life
makes scintillating reading and his writerly pace is exhilarating -
especially when he takes flight from his own starting gates
*Observer*
Covers ground as rapidly and thrillingly as a Cossack horseman. It
lays bare a dizzying network of connections and repeatedly offers
unfamiliar approached to old themes
*Literary Review*
A brilliant, entertaining tour-de-force
*Die Zeit*
Amazing insights sweep through the book - an entrancing history
packed with stories
*Neue Zürcher Zeitung*
Great cultural history
*Der Tagesspiegel*
Ulrich Raulff is a wonderful storyteller
*Südwestrundfunk*
A fabulous book
*Uli Hufen*
An exciting and entertaining ride through various landscapes
*Harry Nutt*
Sex, violence and 6,000 years of horse power... an elegy to the way
horses have galloped through our culture'
*The Times*
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