Abstract

Despite the many contributions of nonhuman animals in history, nonhuman animal representations are seldom crafted with care and accuracy in curricular texts. Because of the anthropocentric vantage point of textbook creation, the nonhuman animal is often portrayed as an object, but as our relationship with the nonhuman world continues to deteriorate, we need now more than ever to consider the agency and subjectivity of nonhuman entities across time and space. In this article, I will use critical contextual analysis as a research method to examine the representation of the horse in a commonly used textbook in middle and high schools in the United States titled World History: Patterns of Interaction to raise larger questions about how to engage with nonhuman animal presence in history with students. Using critical animal studies as a theoretical framework to illuminate the data, the findings reveal that the horse is depicted as agentless and is shown merely as a means for human animals to expand empire and perpetuate social norms. The exploration identifies a gap in the social studies scholarship that neglects the historical contributions of nonhuman animals in curriculum. This article will argue that juxtaposing anthropocentric curricular texts such as the one under investigation with narratives that illuminate nonhuman animal subjectivity is essential for building a more empathetic world and for cultivating a more inclusive historical narrative.