Cow by Hannah Velten

from: http://www.cowhq.co.nr/

'. . . the book’s design and illustrations are beautiful . . . Velten has a passion for her subject and it comes across. Her account is sweeping but precisely detailed, and subtly persuasive. You come to believe her theme isn’t odd at all: this kind of study and awareness should be mainstream. Look hard at cows and you learn about humans. Fascinating and delightful.' –Financial Times Magazine '. . . a great book . . . a fascinating mix of history, myth and record prices paid for top breeding animals.' –Eastern Daily Press

From the milk we drink in the morning to the leather shoes we slip on for the day, to the steak we savour at dinner, our daily lives are thoroughly bound up with the cow. Yet there is a far more complex story behind this seemingly benign creature, which Hannah Velten explores here, plumbing the rich trove of myth, fact and legend surrounding the cow, bull and ox. From the plowing field to the rodeo to the temple, Velten tracks the constantly changing social relationship between men and cattle, beginning with the domestication of aurochs around 9000 BC. From there, Cow launches into a fascinating story of religious fanaticism, scientific exploits and the revolutionary economic transformations engendered by the trade of the numerous products derived from the cow and bull. Velten explores in engaging detail how despite the creature’s prominence at two ends of a wide spectrum – Hinduism venerates the cow as one of the most sacred members of the animal kingdom, while beef is a prized staple of the Western diet – the animal is essentially viewed today as a objectified commodity more than as a living creature. Thought-provoking and informative, Cow restores this oft-overlooked herbivore to the nobility it richly deserves.

190 x 135 mm
208 pages
105 illustrations, 46 in colour
Paperback 978 1 86189 326 0
August 2007 £9.95

Hannah Velten is a freelance journalist who has worked as a livestock reporter for Farmers Weekly and has years of experience working with cows and oxen, including on Australian cattle stations and dairy farms in the UK.