History and the horse

Book review of The Tale of the Horse: A History of India on Horseback

To the burgeoning field of animal history—reflecting the complex relationships between the human and the animal worlds, especially the domesticated ones—Yashaswini Chandra has added an attractive book on horses in Indian history. Her narrative, intends to capture the multifaceted significance of the horse as a “sentient being” in historical contexts, beyond the “erudite, albeit staid articles” on the horse in trade and warfare. The book aims to fill the void of “dedicated books” on the subject. Although Dr Chandra offers the book as a “story”, she has pegged her work to several primary sources and an impressive array of secondary