World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is a 2006 zombie apocalyptic horror novel written by American author Max Brooks. The novel is broken into five chapters: Warnings, Blame, The Great Panic, Turning the Tide, and Good-Byes, and features a collection of individual accounts narrated by an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission, following the devastating global conflict against a zombie plague. Other passages record a decade-long desperate struggle, as experienced by people of various nationalities. The personal accounts take place all over the world, including Antarctica and even outer space. The "interviews" detail the experiences of the survivors of the crisis, as well as social, political, religious, economic, and environmental changes that have occurred as a result. World War Z is a follow-up to Brooks' fictitious survival manual The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), but its tone is more serious. It was inspired by The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two (1984) by Studs Terkel, and by the zombie films of George A. Romero. Brooks used World War Z to comment on government ineptitude and US isolationism, while also examining survivalism and uncertainty. The novel was a commercial hit and was praised by most critics. Its 2007 audiobook version, performed by a full cast including Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, and John Turturro, won an Audie Award. A loosely-based film adaptation, directed by Marc Forster and starring Brad Pitt, was released in 2013, and a video game of the same name, based on the 2013 film, was released in 2019 by Saber Interactive.