Elias on the Development of Modern Sport: Empirical Error, Interpretive Insight and Conceptual Clarification

Abstract

This chapter argues that the ‘lost’ Elias manuscripts shed new light on Elias’s conceptualization of the long-term development of modern sport. The paper provides a critical exploration of the contribution that an analysis of cricket and coursing makes to Elias’s broader understanding of the development of modern sport, addressing Haut’s belief that these texts form a significant part of the broader social process which Elias sought to elucidate. As part of this theoretical reflection, the chapter explores how these ‘fragments’ inform prior debates regarding the centrality of violence to the development of modern sport.