ABSTRACT
The aims of this chapter are twofold: to provide a synthetic view of the long-term development of martial arts within the Japanese civilising process and to provide a comparative analysis between Japanese and Western martial practices in relation to the broader civilising patterns of which they are part. The comparative cases include Japanese and French duelling at the dawn of the court society; professional sumō in mid-late Tokugawa and English boxing; German duelling fraternities and Japanese martial arts before the Second World War; and the development of MMA in Japan, the United States, and Europe at the turn of the twentieth century.
