The aim of this book, in discussing Elias’s theory, is not to refute it. Tendentiously, the theory works with its weaknesses and strong points and it has been enriched by a number of authors over time. The objective of this volume is to discuss the blind spots and, more simply, what is too often taken for granted: namely the obvious pacifying effect of sports and/or produced by sports. This analysis has been guided by two perspectives: the sociological one which questions the "naturalization" of sport which is also the naturalization of the "wildlings" which have to be civilized, and the other which comes from philosophical anthropology and attempts to comprehend the long term characteristics of this union – or disunion – of sport and violence. This book was previously published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.
