Masterminding Nature: The Breeding of Animals 1750-2010
Masterminding Nature examines the evolution of modern animal breeding from the invention of improved breeding methodologies in eighteenth-century England to the application of molecular genetics in the 1980s and 1990s. A clear and concise introduction to the science and practice of artificial selection puts the history of breeding in its scientific, commercial and social context.
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Art and Science in Breeding: Creating Better Chickens
Art and Science in Breeding tells the fascinating story of the development of the poultry industry in nineteenth- and twentieth-century North America, demonstrating how turning a craft into a science is much more complicated – and intriguing! –than is generally assumed.
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Horses in Society (2006)
This book describes the vanished, working horse world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century in the United States, Canada, and Britain, demystifying its dynamics, and in the process showing how a story of horses can enrich our understanding of certain larger issues.
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Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies and Arabian Horses since 1800 (2003)
The human quest to improve livestock, exploring genetics, eugenics and practical breeding in Shorthorn Cattle, Collies and Arabian Horses. In Bred for Perfection, Margaret E. Derry provides the most comprehensive and accessible book yet published on the human quest to improve and develop livestock. Derry, herself a breeder and trained historian of science, explores the “triangle” of genetics, eugenics, and practical breeding, focusing of Shorthorn cattle, show dogs and working dogs, and one type of purebred horse, the Arabian.
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Ontario’s Cattle Kingdom (2001)
The complexity of agricultural and social history in post-Confederation Ontario through a study of beef cattle and livestock farming. Based on abundant original research linking science, agriculture, business and the state, Ontario’s Cattle Kingdom explores the significance of beef cattle and livestock farming in Ontario during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
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