Sky here with another episode of the History on Plug podcast.

The word for gentlemen is caballero, which also means horsemen.

That makes a lot of sense because if you were a gentleman in the past, you had to ride a horse.

This is because a gentleman in Spain's history was a mounted warrior, kind of like a knight,

whose skill and horsemanship defined his social rank. It also showed your social status and your wealth,

because in order to stable, feed, and tackle horse, you had to have quite a bit of money,

as opposed to a more utilitarian animal like a mule. The importance of horses to one status

wasn't exclusive to Spain. It was a

worldwide phenomenon. Horses were the fundamental unit of warfare since horseback riding began

somewhere around 5,000 years ago. And the importance of horses goes way before even that.

They were first domesticated for their milk as a herd animal, which in turn led to the development

of horseback riding because in order to herd a horse you had to be able to keep up with it, and a horse

was the only thing that could keep up with another horse, not even the fastest human.

Once humans were riding horses, their usefulness in war was obvious, and the cavalry was born.

And it's not just their usefulness in warfare. They were a fundamental unit of commerce. You could call the Silk Road, the Horse Road,

because China largely set it up in order to be able to engage in horse trade

so they could be able to go to war with step nomads to their north.

Today's episode, we're speaking with David Chavitts, author of Raiders, Rulers, and Traders,

who traces the story of how horses change the world,

warfare, statecraft, commerce, and culture. Hope we enjoyed this discussion.

And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for a word from our

sponsors. If you want to be able to listen to millions of different audiobooks on the go anytime you

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