Hunting for leisure: The social components and historic foundations of American sport hunting

This project explores the place of sport hunting in human history, especially as it came to be expressed in the United States. Basic assumptions of cultural studies are pursued; it is assumed that human endeavor is marked by cryptic paths of power, that artifacts and behavior might usefully be read as a species of "text," and that the presence of "voice" indicates power.;In the Introduction of this project, a brief parse of the West's relationship with bloody sport and pastime is created. The next several chapters closely deal with the expression of sport hunting in the historic and cultural record. Concluding the project, a chapter reprises each of the previous chapters and offers conclusions.;The Introduction discusses what is meant by sport hunting. Chapter 1 (Hunting, Violent Sport, and War Among the Greeks & the Romans) outlines violent sport associated with the ancients. Chapter 2 (The Influence of The Medieval, Renaissance, and Industrial Eras On New World Hunting) develops the idea that sport hunting was an important activity of the privileged in Europe.;Chapter 3 (Hunting in the New World: Sport in Transition and the Invention of the Sporting Ethic) explains the place of sport hunting in the European tradition. Chapter 4 (Victorian Values and the Impact of Industrialization) deals with both the burgeoning power of the factory system and the fast-developing political influence of the New World.;Chapter 5 (Outdoors as Text; the Development of Natural History: Travelers, Gunners, and the American Wilderness) describes some of the conflict taking place in the United States during development and links European and New World notions of natural history. Chapter 6 (The Privileged Image of the American Rifleman), reengages discussion of the relationship between the New World and antiquity, especially regarding enjoyment of bloody pastime.;Chapter 7 (Roosevelt and the Hunter-Naturalist) explicitly claims that certain historic figures were individually important in constructing today's notions of sport probity. Chapter 8 (Contemporary Sport Hunting: Concluding Comments) briefly pulls together the basic ideas at work in the project.