Customer Reviews

Death and Money in the Afternoon: A History of the Spanish Bullfight

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In a clearly acedemic work the authors imparts a wealth of information about business of bullfighting in the 18th and 19th century. The different factions within the business of bullfighting, matadors, their assistants, promotors, bull breeders, the press, and the crowds are all examined in fine detail. Unfortunately, this interesting information is delivered as simply one fact after another with little consideration for creating an engaging narrative. By the end of the book you'll know a great deal about the history of the business of bullfighting but it'll be up to you to put the facts together the get more complete picture.

Adrian Shubert presents a historical view of the bullfights that is neither pro or con, which is very rare today. The origins, although unclear to everyone, are presented in an unbiased form. Having attended over fifty bullfights in my 34 years of life, I found it very refreshing to learn the importance of the bullfight, not only in the romantic and cultural sense, but from historical and buisiness facts. This was definately worth the money.

I am doing my thesis on bullfighting and find Schubert's investigation interesting and helpful. It may not be the most interesting topic in the world to people who aren't crazy about bullfighting but I feel that this would open doors to allow people to see the other side of bullfighting, instead of seeing it for the death that everyone thinks that it's about.

This book does a good job of ripping off a nice Hemingway title.

Shubert has found that the "sport" of bullfighting has attracted (and attracts) a lot of people and that it has involved (and involves still) a great deal of money. That's quite true, but not really novel; of course this has been a popular "mass sport" for a long time, and of course it has involved considerable amounts of money. But historians, God bless them, must always claim novelty for their writing, and this author is no different in this respect. What Shubert writes is informative, and he does write competently. But none of that "disproves" that bullfighting is indeed a relic of Spain's barbarism and a vehicle for sadism, acted out on the animals and engendered in the rabble. Even the grand pronouncements of no less than three other hsitorians on the the back cover cannot mask this simple fact.