City of beasts

This book explores the role of animals - horses cattle sheep pigs and dogs - in shaping Georgian London. Moving away from the philosophical fictional and humanitarian sources used by previous animal studies it focuses on evidence of tangible dung-bespattered interactions between real people and animals drawn from legal parish commercial newspaper and private records.This approach opens up new perspectives on unfamiliar or misunderstood metropolitan spaces activities social types relationships and cultural developments. Ultimately the book challenges traditional assumptions about the industrial agricultural and consumer revolutions as well as key aspects of the city's culture social relations and physical development. It will be stimulating reading for students and professional scholars of urban social economic agricultural industrial architectural and environmental history.