Zombies: The Complete Guide to the World of the Living Dead

Inspired by horror films of the past, such as George Romero’s 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, zombies have come lurching back into the forefront of the public imagination with books such as the Jane Austen parody Pride,
Prejudice and Zombies, video games such as Left 4 Dead and blockbuster movies like Zombieland. The living dead have never been so popular! We all know that zombies are by no means a modern phenomenon but where did this zombie fascination come from, and where did people like Romero get their inspiration? The earliest citation on zombies stems from the Afro-Caribbean belief system / religion of voodoo, which is a culmination of African religions such as loa together with the Catholicism of the European settlers. Voodoo is extremely popular on the West-Indian island of Haiti, and there are records of ‘real’ zombies having existed. Haitians believe that zombies were once normal people who have undergone zombification by a sorcerer’s spell or potion. The victim then dies and becomes a mindless automaton, incapable of remembering the past, unable to recognise loved ones and doomed to a life of miserable toil under the will of the zombie master. Zombies takes a look at all aspects of this gruesome entity and delves into the less
well-known mythological and historical side of this fascinating subject.