Death in the Making

Death in the Making (1938) is a photographic book by Gerda Taro and Robert Capa, documenting the Spanish Civil War. It was published by Covici · Friede Publishers while the conflict was still underway. It is dedicated to Gerda Taro, who died in the battlefield the year prior. The book also includes photographs by David Seymour and André Kertész. Though the photographs are credited to “Robert Capa”, Capa has written that the work was a collective project by both photographers, given that the photographs “are interspersed and unattributed.” This book helped to cement both Capa's and Taro's reputations as leading war photographers and pioneers in photojournalism.

The book's photograph the daily events of the war from the Republican, anti-fascist side of the conflict. The sections of the book include such titles as "The War of the man on the Street", "Front in Andalusia", and "Women in the War." Journal-like entries accompany the photographs, describing the content of the photographs in a stream of consciousness style.

At age 26, Gerda Taro is purported to be the first female photographer killed in a war front. The book's dedication reads: “For Gerda Taro, who spent one year at the Spanish front – and who stayed on.”