How the Cows Turned Mad
Chapter One
The Sheep Are Strangely Dizzy
The eighteenth century, which was to conclude with the American and French
Revolutions, was also the Age of Enlightenment. The conviction was growing
that scientific progress was intended to enable humans to control the
world around us: Had we not learned to control thunderbolts, thanks to the
lightning rod? This was the era of Linnaeus, Buffon, and Diderot, and we
began cataloguing nature's riches and seeking to employ them in a more
rational way.
This approach was seen particularly in the areas of agriculture and animal
husbandry. Improved productivity was the order of the day. Landowners
organized and agricultural societies and academies were founded, where
questions of farming were discussed and where news and information were
exchanged and documents published. In England, the enclosure policy was
broadly implemented, evictin ... read full excerpt from How the Cows Turned Mad ebook
