Bullfighting has long been perceived as an antiquated, barbarous legacy from Spain's medieval past. In fact, many of that country's best poets, philosophers, and intellectuals have accepted the corrida as the embodiment of Spain's rejection of the modern world. In his new interpretation of bullfighting, Adrian Shubert maintains that this view is both the product of myth and a complete misunderstanding of the real roots of the contemporary bullfight.

Shubert analyzes the business of the sport, and explores the bullfighters' world: their social and geographic origins, careers, and social status. Here also are surprising revelations about the sport, such as the presence of women bullfighters - and the larger gender issues that this provoked.

From the political use of bullfighting in royal and imperial pageants to the nationalistic "great patriotic bullfights" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this is both a fascinating portrait of bullfighting and a vivid recreation of two centuries of Spanish history.