Brother Mendel's Perfect Horse

Man and beast in an age of human warfare

Frank Westerman (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

320 Seiten

2012
Harvill Secker (Verlag)
978-1-84655-088-1 (ISBN)

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'When you touch a Lipizzaner,' Frank Westerman was told as a child, 'you are touching history.'

In Brother Mendel's Perfect Horse he explores the history of these unique creatures, an extraordinary troop of pedigree horses first bred as personal mounts for the Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Following the bloodlines of the studbook, he reconstructs the story of four generations of imperial steeds as they survive the fall of the Habsburg Empire, two world wars and the insane breeding experiments conducted under Hitler, Stalin and Ceausescu.

But what begins as a fairytale becomes a chronicle of the quest for racial purity. Carrying the reader across Europe, from imperial stables and stud farms to the controversial gene labs of today, Westerman asks, if animal breeders are so good at genetic engineering, why do attempts to perfect the human strain always end in tragedy?

Brother Mendel's Perfect Horse, a unique and engrossing fusion of history and travel writing, is a modern fable in which the pure-blood horse ends up revealing man's own shortcomings.

Frank Westerman was born in 1964 and lived and worked in Moscow from 1997 to 2002 as correspondent for the leading Dutch NRC Handelsblad newspaper. Westerman is the author of five highly praised books. His work has been published in more than ten languages and has won many prizes.

Erscheint lt. Verlag	2.8.2012
Übersetzer	Sam Garrett
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	144 x 222 mm
Gewicht	459 g
Themenwelt	Reisen ► Reiseberichte ► Europa
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
ISBN-10	1-84655-088-2 / 1846550882
ISBN-13	978-1-84655-088-1 / 9781846550881
Zustand	Neuware