Chicagoans and guests to the Midwest can marvel over the history and development of our modern world courtesy of "The Horse," an interactive exhibit at The Field Museum through Aug. 14.

The exhibit allows visitors to view horses as much more than athletes, companions, or romantic memories of days gone by. Through dioramas, fossils, and cultural objects horses are presented as the "motor" that drove the development of our entire civilization and as one of the most important animals to ever interact with humans.

"Enterprising humans needed an animate energy source that was both mobile and controllable–hence the domestic horse," said exhibition curator Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History.

"What no one could have foreseen was that, over the millennia, while we molded the horse to our ends, the horse also molded us by changing the scale and scope of what could be carried, traded, fought over, or used to make life better–in short, civilization as we know it," he continued