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World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War Mass Market Paperback – September 27, 2011
| Max Brooks (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.
Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”
Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.
Eyewitness reports from the first truly global war
“I found ‘Patient Zero’ behind the locked door of an abandoned apartment across town. . . . His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bonds, there was no blood. There was also no blood on his other wounds. . . . He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. At first the villagers tried to hold me back. They warned me not to touch him, that he was ‘cursed.’ I shrugged them off and reached for my mask and gloves. The boy’s skin was . . . cold and gray . . . I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.” —Dr. Kwang Jingshu, Greater Chongqing, United Federation of China
“‘Shock and Awe’? Perfect name. . . . But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” —Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers
“Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? . . . For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth.” —General Travis D’Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe
From the Hardcover edition.
- Print length432 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThree Rivers Press
- Publication dateSeptember 27, 2011
- Dimensions4.17 x 0.93 x 6.87 inches
- ISBN-100307888681
- ISBN-13978-0307888686
- Lexile measure960L
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Max Brooks has charted the folly of a disaster response based solely on advanced technologies and brute force in this step-by-step guide to what happened in the Zombie War. He details with extraordinary insight how in the face of institutional missteps and greed, people in unexpected ways achieve unique, creative, and effective strategies to survive and fight back. Brooks’s account of the path to recovery and reconstruction after the war is fascinating, too. World War Z provides us with a starting point, at least, a basic blueprint from which to build a popular understanding of how, when, and why such a disaster came to be, and how small groups and individuals survived.” —Jeb Weisman, Ph.D.,Director of Strategic Technologies, National Center for Disaster Preparedness
“Possesses more creativity and zip than entire crates of other new fiction titles. Think Mad Max meets The Hot Zone . . . It’s Apocalypse Now, pandemic-style. Creepy but fascinating.”
- USA TODAY
“Prepare to be entranced by this addictively readable oral history of the great war between humans and zombies. . . . Will grab you as tightly as a dead man’s fist. A.”
- Entertainment Weekly, EW Pick
“Probably the most topical and literate scare since Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast. . . . This is action-packed social-political satire with a global view.”
- Dallas Morning News
“Brooks [is] America’s most prominent maven on the living dead. . . . Chilling. . . . It is gripping reading and a scathing indictment of weak responses to crises real and over-hyped.”
- Hartford Courant
“A sober, frequently horrifying and even moving account. . . . Brooks has delivered a full-blown horror novel, laced with sharp social and political observations and loads of macabre, gruesome imagery. . . . The real horror of World War Z comes from the all-too-plausible responses of human beings and governments to the menace.”
- Fangoria
“A horror fan’s version of Studs Terkel’s The Good War. . . . Like George Romero’s Dead trilogy, World War Z is another milestone in the zombie mythology.”
- Booklist
“Brooks commits to detail in a way that makes his nightmare world creepily plausible. . . . Far more affecting than anything involving zombies really has any right to be. . . . The book . . . opens in blood and guts, turns the world into an oversized version of hell, then ends with and affirmation of humanity’s ability to survive the worst the world has to offer. It feels like the right book for the right times, and that’s the eeriest detail of all.”
- A.V. Club, The Onion
“The best science fiction has traditionally been steeped in social commentary. World War Z continues that legacy. . . . We haven’t been this excited about a book without pictures since–well, since ever.”
- Metro
“Each story locks together perfectly to create a wonderful, giddy suspense. Brooks also has the political savvy to take advantage of any paranoia a modern reader might feel. . . . The perfect book for all us zombie junkies.”
- Paste
“This infectious and compelling book will have nervous readers watching the streets for zombies. Recommended.”
- Library Journal
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
From the Hardcover edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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Product details
- Publisher : Three Rivers Press; Reprint edition (September 27, 2011)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 432 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307888681
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307888686
- Lexile measure : 960L
- Item Weight : 7.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.17 x 0.93 x 6.87 inches
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Max Brooks is the author of World War Z, the Zombie Survival Guide, Minecraft: The Island, and Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. His graphic novels include GI Joe: Hearts and Minds, The Extinction Parade, Germ Warfare: A Graphic History, and The Harlem Hellfighters.
Brooks holds dual fellowships at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and the Modern War Institute at West Point.
Customer reviews
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But it’s actually genius! It’s basically dozens of very short stories each told by a different fictional person, each revealing a different facet of what happened, and each narrator being omniscient about their aspect because it’s historical. The short stories wouldn’t have worked as well if they unfolded in “real time” because the highlights were often years apart. At the same time, each story typically mentions unrelated key events in passing without going into detail, such as “This was before the Great Panic”, and that sets a dramatic hook: hmm, what was the Great Panic? I want to know more about that.
Overall it has the feeling of the endless and interesting documentaries that can be made about World War II or any of those conflicts. We all know the basic outline of events but it’s always interesting to hear the anecdotal details and there are so many different interesting stories to be told.
This book is a collection of interviews post apocalypse. The interviews, collected by a member of the UN, span the globe and range from children who survived the war with the zombies, to political figures, to military personnel, to businessmen, to regular survivors from the very beginning of the outbreak.
There is a visceral appeal to the way the interviews play out, and Max Brooks, the author, did a phenomenal job building suspense, describing the horror, and playing on the very real outcomes of political failure and economic greed in the face of a sudden inexplicable horror that affected the entire world.
I had a hard time putting the book down, and at the end, I was loathe to close the book. Even knowing the outcome, the ongoing struggles of the world recovering from the war, which draws so many parallels to what our planet is undergoing now with the pandemic, I wanted to know more.
If you have not read World War Z yet, I highly recommend you get a copy. If you have already seen the movie, I still recommend reading the book, but be sure you leave the movie's story on the shelf, and be prepared for something almost entirely different, and most definitely more "real.”
It is not at all like the movie with a main character on some quest to save the world. It follows many different groups and people as they struggle with the outbreak of the global pandemic. It can be hard to follow sometimes with so many different people and situations going on but it is quite interesting. It presents a great picture of so many different countries and groups and their experiences combating or losing to the zombies. It is an amazing change of pace from what you would see as a traditional zombie/pandemic/world-ending event book. You get a sense of all the struggles and hard decisions that such an event would bring about. It's not some super hero or special agent saving the world. It's about regularly people struggling to survive and society coming together to combat the greatest enemy humanity has ever known.
There's a lot I can say here but I'll just keep it short: this feels like a work of love that truly covers what it means to be human and covering real geopolitical considerations while using zombie as a backdrop to explore and manipulate those factors. It's endlessly fascinating and I never want to force a sequel but I'd love a sequel of some kind. This book feels like what I wanted to feel with ready player one. I wanted to live in this world. I hope that ar/VR tech allows us to live realities in the future since apparently I just love zombie apocalypse so much.
Want to feel alive and human and inspired? Read a book all about dead humans then.
The 'interviews' are given by people from all segments of society and corners of the world. Max Brooks has set a high bar for post apocalyptic novels.
Top reviews from other countries
It is about recognising our flaws in the form of reluctance, hesitation and denial as much as it is about recognising our capacity for survival in the harshest situation by way of grit and determination.
Our best survival tools are the aspects of ourselves we turn our noses up at as being archaic and uncomfortable.
It's compelling reading - so many voices, backgrounds, nationalities all retelling their experiences during the 10 year war. Zombies are bit players in the drama and conflicts and bravery.
Some of the stories will stay with you long after you've finished reading.
Max Brooks is a skillful, intelligent writer with a strong grasp on how people tick.
Highly recommended.
WW Z is a fun, easy read and for me the standard against which to judge zombie novels ( and somewhat, zombie films though the epic Brad Pitt film is largely unrelated, having fast British-style 28 Days Later Zs).
The journalist interviewing survivors from all over the world narrative works well: each telling a different part or stage of the apocalypse from official denial and cover-up, outright lying by many countries' rulers (with noble exceptions) ,through to disastrous or non-existent countermeasures, defeat, slaughter, panicked flight, exile and eventual stalemate, and thereafter on to counter attack and human resurgence. Lots of different characters, situations and ideas to enjoy. And if the American Brooks gets his ideas of the British from a Hollywood view of us, well who can blame him?
It's a relaxing book to reread on holiday and with maybe one eye on the weather.
And as we start to come out of internal exile as Corvid19 sputters to some kind of constant low rolling tragedy I'm not sure the pre WW Z leaders come out as quite the dolts and crooks (and clearly Noughties Republicans in the States) that progressive Brooks made them out to be: imagined them way back when. At least they tried NOT to crash the world economy in a panic over their pandemic.
And yes, Brooks'' postwar world is mostly liberal,.globalist, and basically written as if Bill Clinton and Colin Powell had saved the world,.with a little help from moderate communists and Silicon Valley Democrats. Also, it's very much a pre-internet world and so it's Spielberg? or Tarantino? who keep civilian morale up rather than Amazon Prime and Netflix might try to do today.. Might.
Brookes tries to be fair to people (even Americans) not like himself., so it's
not much of a torment to read his preachy Greens or New Dealers gloating about their triumphs- patriots and professional soldiers and monarchists get a fair whack. Great fun for all the English-speaking folk apart from the then-extreme bookends of Left and Right.
But it's now the summer of 2020 and with western cities in flame, the police on their knees and the statues of soldiers who defeated the Confederacy and Hitler vandalised,destroyed or locked away for safety, who knows? -perhaps Brooks' exciting fantasy of postwar poverty, unnecessary food rationing, Tsarism peace and Social Democracy may soon seem like a dream of paradise.
Five stars for a fiver well spent way back when . Treat yourself to what may very well be numerous re-reads. And it's got to be nicer than living in Seattle right now..
It works because so many of the tales ring true. When I mentioned to a friend her cooking skills would in great demand after the zombie war, she exploded with protests about her professional background and job. Right at that point in the text, an organiser was talking about how difficult it was to convince a man who used to "get hold of the rights to classic rock songs for commercials" that his skills weren't just inappropriate, they were obsolete - the post-apocalypse world needs carpenters and builders and manual trades, not marketers...
The way the eyewitness interviews develop over time, spanning countries and viewpoints, come together as a single, coherent picture of just what happened, how we solved it, how difficult it was. This book is truly something different. And that's not common in today's lit. A fantastic read.





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