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Your first question is simple: when and where was barbed wire invented? Let us start with the simple answer: barbed wire was invented in 1874, for use on the American Great Plains. Let me be more precise so that we may begin looking for the essence of the tool. Its goal was to prevent the motion of cows; its function relied on violence; its success depended on deployment on a vast scale.

The question may be restated: why would America need, in 1874, to prevent the motion of cows on the Great Plains,¹ and why would it do so through violence deployed on a vast scale? Now we reach some difficult questions whose answers might reveal the nature of barbed wire.

Barbed wire was created as a result of a special kind of colonization taking place in the American West. This colonization had two features that, combined, set it apart from earlier colonizing episodes. First, it was new in terms of space: an entire landmass was to be exploited (and not merely some selected points on it). Second, it was new in terms of time: the colonization was to take place very rapidly. Earlier human expansions on similar scales had taken generations, but this one was to take no more than a few years. There were precedents for massive colonizations, and there were precedents for rapid colonizations, but there was no precedent for a colonization that was simultaneously massive and rapid. Thus a new way of control over space was called for: one based on violence deployed on a vast scale.

In this chapter’s first section, “Unpacking the Louisiana Purchase,” I consider the rise of the cow on the plains, leading to the immediate background to the invention of barbed wire. Section 2, “How to Fence a Cow,” describes how cows were controlled by barbed wire. We see how space and its animals were suddenly brought under control following the introduction of barbed wire. In section 3, “How to Fence the World,” I consider the shape of the industry following its globalization. The problem of control over animals was universal, and it resulted quickly in a system, based on the one used in the American Northeast, reaching around the globe. The following two chapters will trace out the consequences of this globalization.