World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War | 
 enlarge | Author: Max Brooks
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Rating:  459 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307346617
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780307346612
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
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Product Description
“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 454 more reviews...
 Compellingly Entertaining November 27, 2008
Mike D. (Santa Monica, CA USA)
It's rare that I come across a book that I just can't put down, but this was one of them. It is organized like a series of short stories, and each one was so vividly realized that I wanted to know more about that vignette's character. Together, the stories paint an incredibly detailed and believeable picture of what such a conflict might be like. So much so that I found myself occasionally caught in the reality of the book's world when I wasn't reading it. Handled properly, this could be adapted into an incredible film.
Great Read November 26, 2008
G. Walker
Realistic, exciting, suspenseful, and eerie. The interview-style story-telling really adds to the suspense and feel of the book.
 great book November 25, 2008
L. Goldfinger
Book got here in good time. It was a great book. Loved the realism behind the fantasy type story.
World War Z November 24, 2008
M. Babcock
This is not your typical zombie fare. It's a book about what will happen if a major apocalyptic disease spreads through the world creating major devastation. And how one might survive: how nations may survive; and how we may continue on following such.
It covers the oral histories from the small individual, the famous person, the corporation and the governments. All very intersting. Some dispicable, some brave, some heroic. What fun.
Not a story- but a world November 15, 2008
lochnessa7 (Half Hollow Hills, NY)
Max Brooks' World War Z turns zombie-lore on its bloody, severed head and presents it in a brand new way. Humanity has already won the war on Zombie when the book begins, the struggle for survival has been triumphant. But Brooks is out to tally the physical and spiritual losses humanity endured by interviewing survivors from every continent.
The voices of these survivors, from Cuba, China, America, South Africa, Britian, Canada are real, believable and unique. They are civilians, soldiers, politicians, and doctors. With amazing detail, the humanity of the stories shines through even the bleakest experiences.
Ultimately, Brooks succeeds in more than writing a good story; he creates a world, a world of his own vision that mirrors our own in all its horror and glory.
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