World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

As the pieces of the whole narrative come together through individual interviews, it becomes apparent that there were a number of opportunities to keep the zombie outbreaks under control and that the development of the situation into a worldwide apocalyptic event was the result of either willful ignorance or suppression of information at critical junctures and in the hot zones. Through Kwang Jingshu’s interview, the reader learns that, though this was his first encounter with the zombies, the Chinese government was already aware of the growing threat of the zombie virus. Instead of investigating and alerting the rest of the world to the problem, those who encountered the victims were arrested and kept confined to prevent further spread of information. American soldier Stanley MacDonald also experienced a repression of his account, as his encounter was classified as exposure to unknown chemical agents. As these encounters become more frequent, the Warmbrunn-Knight Report is circulated among the major political powers, but its warnings and suggestions are largely ignored. Because of the tremendous effort to repress or actively ignore the severity of the situation, the problem was able to grow unchecked and become a threat so big that it was impossible to ignore. The solution to the problem was the Redeker Plan, whose primary element was the sacrifice of thousands, if not millions, of people used as decoys to ensure the safety of those deemed worthy to save. Though most accepted the sacrifice as a necessary evil and that there was no longer any choice, the fact remains that had the world powers paid attention to the Warmbrunn-Knight Report, the Redeker Plan would never have been needed.

Deep in the weeds of World War Z and only a few months after the execution of the Redeker Plan, the International Program for Health and Safety began and then grew into Radio Free Earth. The organizers of this broadcast recognized that ignorance was the true enemy in this worldwide fight. The program broadcast information about survival skills, relief programs and locations, swarm movements, and other information in hundreds of languages aimed at fighting the general atmosphere of misinformation that had borne the zombie apocalypse. This program recognized that the silence of the powers people put their trust in (i.e., the governments) was dangerous and only perpetuating the problem. Once Radio Free Earth starting broadcasting around the globe, people were better able to protect themselves and fight the influx of zombies. In fact, this distribution of information saved the lives of many that the Redeker Plan had written off.

Taking the theme one step further is the book itself. The introduction provided by the narrator states that this is an expanded version of their report that was stripped down and presented as a facts-only document to the UN. The original report was stripped down to remove the sentimentality, but the narrator feels that it also stripped out the humanity from his interviews. Each interview provides a unique perspective of individual experience, and these individual stories combine to make up the whole of humanity’s experience fighting this global threat. The intention of publishing these personal accounts is to make sure that these stories do not die. As the saying goes, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and this book helps to make sure that the memories of the struggle and decision making (both good and bad) that occurred before, during, and after World War Z will not be forgotten or repeated.