Sources: Encyclopedia of the Zombie: The Walking Dead in Popular Culture and Myth and The Zombie Book: The Encyclopedia of the Living Dead

Abstract

The AMC television series The Walking Dead is merely one of the latest manifestations of our recurring fascination with zombies. An earlier wave was sparked by George Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead and its sequels, and an earlier one still by W. B. Seabrook’s 1929 travelogue The Magic Island. The two reference works under review delve into the gruesome details of the phenomenon, discussing religion and folklore, writers and their books, films and their directors and actors, graphic novels and comic books, diseases and epidemics, and so on, with side trips into somewhat related subjects such as ghouls and vampires. There are also entries on specific events (particularly in The Zombie Book, whose approach is more anecdotal) and broader concepts.