An Idle Thought

Has anyone done any work -- serious or popular -- into analyzing the different standards of "hunting" in the US and UK and using those to explain the characters of the two countries?

Here's what I mean:

In the US, "hunting" can be social, but the essentials of it are individual: hunters mostly go out alone, carefully camouflaged to sight and smell, to hide in the woods or quietly stalk their prey. That prey typically is large; the standard hunted animal in North America is the white-tailed deer. (For the hunters out there, I'm ignoring bird hunting for the purposes of this discussion.) A successful hunter then has to bring his kill out of the woods, which is no small job and has been the source of many useful gadgets. Hunters see themselves as part of a tradition, one that reaches back to the 18th and 19th century frontiersmen and even to Native Americans; those most serious about that tradition often avoid modern technology -- using black-powder weapons or bows -- as much as possible to focus on their skills and be more "fair." It can be a very expensive hobby, but the essentials of it -- a long gun, tough outdoor clothing, and a permit -- are within the reach of nearly every rural person, and already part of the lives of many of them.

In the UK, "hunting" is immensely social and ritualized, organized into centuries-old Hunts with severely aristocratic overtones and requiring serious expenditure and gear, including large numbers of dogs and horses. (Again, American hunting sometimes uses dogs, but mostly for bird hunting, which I'm ignoring to make the distinctions clearer.) The dress code is also very regimented. The standard hunted animal is a fox -- once a serious agricultural pest, but now existing mostly to be hunted -- which provides only sport, not food, unlike the American deer. Obviously tradition is very important to British hunting, but it's a civilized, aristocratic tradition rather than one related to food-gathering or individual expertise. (One can show oneself well in a British hunt, but it's the dogs that get the fox -- an American hunter makes his own kill from start to finish.)

Has anyone ever used that as a way to write about the differences in the two nations? I'd be interested in reading that book. (Said the man who spent five years editing a book club for American hunters.)
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