The modern bullfight did not emerge until the early 18th century. And far from being an archaic remnant of the past -- it was a precursor of the 20th-century mass leisure industry. Indeed, before today's multi-million-dollar athletes, there was Francisco Romero, born in 1700, whose unique form of bullfighting netted him unprecedented fame and wealth, and Manuel Rodriguez Manolete, hailed as Spain's greatest matador by the New York Times after a fatal goring in 1947. The bullfight was replete with promoters, agents, journalists, and, of course, hugely-paid bullfighters who were exploited to promote wine, cigarettes, and other products. Shubert analyzes the business of the sport, and explores the bullfighters' world: their social and geographic origins, careers, and social status. From the political use of bullfighting in royal and imperial pageants to the nationalistic "great patriotic bullfights" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Death and Money in the Afternoon vividly examines the evolution of Spanish culture and society through the prism of one of the West's first -- and perhaps its most spectacular -- spectator sports.