1965, Harold Ober Associates, Barnes & Noble Books, 1996, 212 pages, profusely illustrated

Robert Baldick published The Duel in 1965, and since then it has been the standard work in the field. I am glad to have the opportunity to reread this gem. The book employees the same scheme as Paul Kirchner would later use in Dueling with the Sword and Pistol, but is a more general study of the phenomena of the European tradition of social sanctioned mortal combat in its various guises.

The author begins with the judicial duel, moves on to the chivalric duel, and thence to the duel of honor generally conducted with a single blade or a pistol. For the general reader Chapter 10: Unusual Duels will be the most fun, including an account of two billiard players settling a score with a cue ball duel. My favorite judicial duel has to be the greyhound of de Montdidier, avenging the murder of its master by accusing in a canine way, fighting, and then defeating the Chevalier Maquer, who was armed with shield and stick.

This is good straight narrative history without a moral axe to grind. Baldick begins with the best possible quote, which does reflect my opinion that an armed society is a polite society and that an unarmed society falls into rudeness. The single page introduction consists largely of earlier men’s estimation of the duel, men who lived in that age when honor meant something. The first paragraph of The Duel begins with a quote from Jules Janin;

“[the duel] makes of every one of us a strong and an independent power, and constitutes out of each individual life the life of all; it grasps the sword of justice, which the laws have dropped, punishes what no code can chastise—contempt and insult. Those who have opposed dueling are either fools or cowards; and those who have both condemned and advocated the practice, are on both sides sophists and liars. It is to dueling alone that we owe the remains of our civilization.”

That statement sounded insane to the modern American ear. But in our postmodern time, in an age with porn ads in Time Square, when ancient World War II veterans are attacked by gangs of teens and killed for sport in our streets, when men no longer settle their differences in this ancient way but instead either behave like gossipy women or packs of feral apes swooping down on the lone unarmed prey, does it really sound so kooky?

I am not calling for a return to the duel—although I would welcome it—only suggesting that in a society that recognizes the rights of two men to settle their differences physically, the right of one man to defend himself against another, or more likely against a rampaging pack of youths, is more apt to be respected.

Before you condemn Janin consider that in the year 2014 you have no right to defend your property, your wife, or even your life, despite whatever fantasy you might harbor to the contrary. Janin might sound like a madman for pointing out the moral value of the duel. However, if somehow he could see us in our world, he would surely regard it as a world gone mad.