Rodeo: An Animal History deftly chronicles the development of rodeo as both a sport and a symbolic reenactment of struggling against the land from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Focusing on the animal participants exposes the inherent contradictions of adapting this supposedly quintessentially western sport to modern times. In a region long defined by entrenched nostalgia crashing into changing realities, “tradition” has served as a comforting and familiar means of justifying the persistence of that which leaves open wounds on animals, people, and even the land itself. Nance's nuanced examinations of how events like bronc and bull riding developed into their modern iterations are revealing and unsettling. Sure, there are interesting stories of individual animals who left imprints on the sport. But the bigger contribution of the book is much deeper and far darker, exposing the problematic and often tenuous connections to the past that rodeo is supposed...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
