Militarism, Hunting, Imperialism ― Blooding the Martial Male

The late Victorian and Edwardian officer class viewed hunting and big game hunting in particular, as a sound preparation for imperial warfare. For the imperial officer in the making, the ‘blooding’ hunting ritual was a visible ‘hallmark’ of stirling martial masculinity. Sir Henry Newbolt, the period poet of subaltern self-sacrifice, typically considered hunting as essential for the creation of a ‘masculine sporting spirit’ necessary for the consolidation and extension of the empire. Hunting was seen as a manifestation of Darwinian masculinity that maintained a pre-ordained hierarchical order of superordinate and subordinate breeds.

Militarism, Hunting, Imperialism examines these ideas under the following five sections:

• martial imperialism: the self-sacrificial subaltern
• ‘blooding’ the middle class martial male
• the imperial officer, hunting and war
• martial masculinity proclaimed and consolidated
• martial masculinity adapted and adjusted.

This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

J. A. Mangan is a Fellow of the Royal Society and Founding and Executive Editor of The International Journal of the History of Sport now in its 28th year as well as Founding Editor of the series Sport in the Global Society, now in its 12th year. He was Founding Editor of Sport in Society and Soccer and Society. He has authored or edited over 40 books including the internationally acclaimed monographs Athleticismin the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: the Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology andThe Games Ethic and Imperialism; Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal.

Callum C. McKenzie is a lecturer of Social Policy at the East Lancashire Institute of Higher Education. He gained his PhD at Strathclyde University and is a regular contributor to the International Journal of the History of Sport.