Book Review: World War Z

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a fictional book by Max Brooks that recounts a fictional zombie world war. The book mimics Studs Terkel's The Good War, which retells the tale of a world conflict using interviews gathered from the people who were there. The book is a simple collection of interviews as they recount their stories of survival.

Because of an unknown outbreak of rising dead that consume the major population centers of the world, a huge battle for humanity's survival begins. We hear stories from all kinds of people facing this global threat, ranging from a recluse Japanese otaku to the director of the American Central Intelligence Agency.

At first glance, World War Z is nothing more than a fictional book that attempts to pull your imagination into an apocalyptic hypothetical. However, as you read on, it becomes obvious that the interviews are disguised political, social, and economic commentaries. The varied settings of the book between survivors go in depth about how their situations are directly related to the workings of the world at large.

For example, the interview with the fictional former White House chief of staff explores the American government's treatment of the zombie threat:

We got dozens of these reports a week, every administration did, claiming that their particular bogeyman was "the greatest threat to human existence." C'mon! Can you imagine what America would have been like if the federal government slammed on the brakes every time some paranoid crackpot cried "wolf" or "global warming" or "living dead"? Please. What we did, what every president since Washington has done, was provide a measured, appropriate response, in direct relation to a realistic threat assessment. (59)

It is a simple truth behind any dangerous situation: formulate a response according to the threat level. However, this leaves a lot of open doors as to what an actual threat response constitutes. It is clear that the government cannot respond to a threat unless it is extremely pressing and widespread. It is impossible for a government to explore and handle every possible threat. This usually results in a explosive situation in which people are blamed for not taking the appropriate precautionary responses when the threat turns public.

It is with quotes like these scattered throughout the book that we realize what Max Brooks is trying to say to us. Although it may be unintentional, it is a screen of truth against the preconceived notions of what a country's government is supposed to do in times of duress. It is a hypothetical test on if a government is prepared to respond to a threat. It is a scenario that asks what a country can do about their society, economy, and government in a world wide crisis.

Another reoccurring theme of World War Z is the lack of morality and ethics when survival is the only objective. Practicality and logic is needed at the expense of basic rights and ethics. Even the fictional vice president of the United States admits it:

So many of his proposals looked crazy at first glance, but once you peeled back the first layer, you realized that underneath there existed a core of irrefutable logic. Take the new punishment laws, those really set me off. Putting people in stocks? Whipping them in town squares!?! What was this, Old Salem, the Taliban's Afghanistan? It sounded barbaric, un-American, until you thought about the options. What were you going to do with the thieves and looters, put them in prison? Who would that help? Who could afford to divert able-bodied citizens to feed other able-bodied citizens? More importantly, why remove the punished from society when they could serve as a such a valuable deterrent? (149)

It is the collective threat of death incarnate that forces people to throw the rule book out of the window. There is deep insight into humanity's depths of darkness when their collective security is threatened. Martial law and discipline is needed inside city walls when there are millions of enemies banging on your door. These situations cause people to alienate basic rights that most Americans take for granted.

Beside all the political commentary, there seems to be a unifying goal World War Z has in trying to teach people that we must stop fighting each other in order to save each other. The United Nations today is a mere symbol of world peace that may never be achieved. It is the ultimate rule of alliances that is explained: people only unite to fight a larger threat to both of them. Quite literally, the enemy of your is enemy is your friend. The only message that can be understood is that we must stop fighting petty wars against each other. What do we do when a matter of global cooperation is required?

This book is meant for almost anyone who has a passing interest in the American government's hypothetical workings, the futility of elitism during Armageddon, or the struggles of the average person in a zombie apocalypse. There is something in World War Z for most people, and it's interesting to explore one subject while it is being infused with another.

If I were a government/economics teacher, I would force my students to read certain parts of this book. While the accounts are fictional, it is clear that the situations would actually occur in real life if a zombie apocalypse happened. It is a good way to learn about how government reorganization works based on the situation. On the plus side, you get to learn about it in a zombie backdrop.

There is a section in the book that includes an interview with a person who sold a fake drug called Phalanx to people to "combat" the zombie outbreak. This is an interesting exploration into the capitalist society of the United States and how its consumers are driven by fear, with help from government institutions that want order. The interview with the former Chief of Staff confirms that the drugs were needed, even if they didn't work:

Look how much time and money had been put into cancer research, or AIDS. Do you want to be the man that tells the American people that he's diverting funds from either one of those for some disease that most people haven't even heard of? Look at what we've put into research during and after the war, and we still don't have a cure or a vaccine. We knew Phalanx was a placebo, and we were grateful for it. It calmed people down and let us do our job.

What, you would rather we told people the truth? That it wasn't a new strain of rabies but a mysterious uber-plague that reanimated the dead? Can you imagine that panic that would have happened: the protest, the riots, the billions in damage to private property? Can you imagine all those wet-pants senators who would have brought the government to a standstill so they could railroad some high-profile and ultimately useless "Zombie Protection Act" through Congress? Can you imagine the damage it would have done to that administration's political capital?

We're talking about election year, and a hard damn, uphill fight. We were the "cleanup crew," the unlucky bastards who had to mop up all the shit left by the last administration, and believe me, the previous eight years had piled up one tall mountain of shit! The only reason we squeaked back into power was because our new propped-up patsy kept promising a "return to peace and prosperity." The American people wouldn't have settled for anything less. They thought they'd been through some pretty tough times already, and it would have been political suicide to tell them that the toughest ones were actually up ahead. (60)

This is the kind of political exploration that World War Z depicts. A good way to learn about how a government works is to examine its response to crisis. What better way to learn than to actually hear what the administration officials think? You'll probably never get a chance to talk to them in real life, so it's not too much of a handicap for an aspiring political leader to start examining World War Z.

Or perhaps this is a book for the psychologist? There are multiple interviews with people who change drastically due to the zombie apocalypse. It is interesting to see how people respond to their dilemmas, infused with a backdrop of desperation and disbelief. The head of the American Department of Strategic Resources recounts a story:

One woman, a casting director, exploded. How dare they degrade her like this! She had an MFA in Conceptual Theater, she had cast the top three grossing sitcoms in the last five seasons and she had made more in a week than her instructor could dream of in several lifetimes! She kept addressing that instructor by her first name. "Magda," she kept saying, "Magda, enough already. Magda, please." At first I thought this woman was just being rude, degrading the instructor by refusing to use her title. I found out later that Mrs. Magda Antonova used to be this woman's cleaning lady. (140)

It is this kind of storytelling that makes World War Z appealing to so many people. Not only is it a gut wrenching story about zombies, but it is also a learning guide to certain aspects of politics and human behavior.

There's something for everyone in World War Z, which is why its no surprise that it's a New York Times bestseller, or that the book is being made into a movie. If you haven't read this book, you need to. You have no idea what you're missing out on.