Zombie History

Fake history is not a harmless mistake of fact or interpretation. It is a mistake that conceals prejudice; a mistake that discriminates against certain kinds of people; a mistake held despite a preponderance of evidence; a mistake that harms us. Fake history is like the Zombies we see in mass media, for the fake fact, like the fictional Zombie, lives by turning real events and people into monstrous perversions of fact and interpretation. Its pervasiveness reveals that prejudice remains its chief appeal to those who believe it. Its effect is insidious, because we cannot or will not destroy those mischievous lies. Zombie history is almost impossible to kill. Some Zombie history was and is political, a genre of what Hannah Arendt called “organizational lying” about the past. Its makers designed the Zombie to create a basis in the false past for particular discriminatory policies. Other history Zombies are cultural. They encapsulate and empower prejudice and stereotyping. Still other popular history Zombies do not look disfigured, but like Zombies walk among us without our realizing how devastating their impact can be. Zombie History argues that, whatever their purpose, whatever the venue in which they appear, history Zombies undermine the very foundations of disinterested study of the past.

Learn the American history they don’t teach in school—like colonial zombie massacres and undead Civil War heroes—in this horrifying and hilarious volume. “Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.” —Howard Zinn Shedding light on 500 years of suppression, this shocking exposé reveals the pivotal role in American history played by its most invisible minority—zombies. From colonization and revolution to World Wars and global hegemony, A Zombie’s History of the United States tells the powerful and moving stories of this country’s living-dead underclass, including: •The zombie massacre of European colonists at Plymouth Rock •The gruesome killing of a zombinated Meriwether Lewis by his fellow explorer William Clark •The doomed defense of the Alamo against hordes of the attacking undead •The heroic, platoon-saving charge into a hail of German fire by an undead Lt. Audie Murphy •The top-secret NASA missions that launched (and often lost) zombies into space •The anti-terrorist program to stop the weaponization of the zombie virus

Add a gurgling moan with the sound of dragging feet and a smell of decay and what do you get? Better not find out. The zombie has roamed with dead-eyed menace from its beginnings in obscure folklore and superstition to global status today, the star of films such as 28 Days Later, World War Z, and the outrageously successful comic book, TV series, and video game—The Walking Dead. In this brain-gripping history, Roger Luckhurst traces the permutations of the zombie through our culture and imaginations, examining the undead’s ability to remain defiantly alive. Luckhurst follows a trail that leads from the nineteenth-century Caribbean, through American pulp fiction of the 1920s, to the middle of the twentieth century, when zombies swarmed comic books and movie screens. From there he follows the zombie around the world, tracing the vectors of its infectious global spread from France to Australia, Brazil to Japan. Stitching together materials from anthropology, folklore, travel writings, colonial histories, popular literature and cinema, medical history, and cultural theory, Zombies is the definitive short introduction to these restless pulp monsters.

Our most modern monster and perhaps our most American, the zombie that is so prevalent in popular culture today has its roots in African soul capture mythologies. The Transatlantic Zombie provides a more complete history of the zombie than has ever been told, explaining how the myth’s migration to the New World was facilitated by the transatlantic slave trade, and reveals the real-world import of storytelling, reminding us of the power of myths and mythmaking, and the high stakes of appropriation and homage. Beginning with an account of a probable ancestor of the zombie found in the Kongolese and Angolan regions of seventeenth-century Africa and ending with a description of the way, in contemporary culture, new media are used to facilitate zombie-themed events, Sarah Juliet Lauro plots the zombie’s cultural significance through Caribbean literature, Haitian folklore, and American literature, film, and the visual arts. The zombie entered US consciousness through the American occupation of Haiti, the site of an eighteenth-century slave rebellion that became a war for independence, thus making the figuration of living death inseparable from its resonances with both slavery and rebellion. Lauro bridges African mythology and US mainstream culture by articulating the ethical complications of the zombie’s invocation as a cultural conquest that was rebranded for the American cinema. As The Transatlantic Zombie shows, the zombie is not merely a bogeyman representing the ills of modern society, but a battleground over which a cultural war has been fought between the imperial urge to absorb exotic, threatening elements, and the originary, Afro-disaporic culture’s preservation through a strategy of mythic combat.

THE ROTTING TIDES OF HISTORY VIKING DEAD: Northern Europe, 976 AD. Bjólf and the Viking crew of the ship Hrafn flee up an unknown river after a bitter battle, only to find themselves in a bleak land of pestilence, where the dead return as draugr to feed on the flesh of their kin. Terrible stories are told of a dark castle in a hidden fjord, and of black ships that come raiding with invincible draugr berserkers. And no sooner has Bjólf resolved to leave than the black ships appear... STRONGHOLD: Ranulf, a young English knight, is among the force sent to capture Grogen Castle from Welsh rebels. Even as the English celebrate their triumph, the native druids are summoning a tireless army of bone and raddled flesh in retaliation. Now, for the sake of all, Ranulf must defy his masters and rescue the daughter of his enemy, but hope lasts only so long as the stronghold – once thought impregnable – holds out against the legions of the angry dead... DEATH HULK: Orders to chase down the French frigate Elita off the Cape of Good Hope come as welcome news to Captain Havelock, stranded with the rest of the fleet at Spithead and waiting for France to initiate hostilities. Here is a chance for glory – and wealth. Very soon, however, Captain Havelock will come to realise that theirs are not the only two warships in the southern ocean. An enemy thought long since vanquished has risen from the deeps...

Our team of crack historians has uncovered the truth you never learned in school: the living dead have walked among us since the dawn of time. In this collection of gruesome tales from throughout the ages, the ravenous undead shamble through bloody battlefields, plague-ridden cities, genteel country estates, and dusty frontier towns. They emerge from foggy cemeteries, frozen barrows, loamy bogs, cursed mines, and gore-spattered operating rooms to prey on the living. But these zombies don't just eat people. They help painters and writers save their faltering careers. They unwittingly push humankind on the quest for fire. They topple evil capitalists and their corporate empires. They fight crime. They fall in love. Join us on a journey into our zombie-filled past... Neither history nor the living dead have ever been this exciting!

Stories about the walking dead searching for a meal of warm flesh have been around for thousands of years. This eBook can take readers on a trip through time to learn about ancient and medieval lore about zombies. Then explore how zombie stories have changed over time until these creatures became some of the most popular monsters seen in today's popular culture.

The Gory Guide to the Walking Dead While most people know what zombies look like, do they actually know how they act? What they do during their spare time? What their work ethic is? Probably not. Enter The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival. From bestselling zombie author Scott Kenemore, learn all the tricks to the living dead trade. Whether you’re fighting the zombies or are a zombie yourself, this collection is all that you need to survive on your own. Included in this book are excerpts and illustrations from such helpful handbooks as: The Code of the Zombie Pirate The Art of Zombie Warfare Z.E.O. The Zen of Zombie Zombies vs. Nazis The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival is a one-stop shop for everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the world of zombies. Whether you’re the undead seeking to make it in the business industry, fine-tune your martial arts, master your swashbuckling, or move on up the corporate ladder, this compendium is just for you. With gory full-color illustrations and insightful knowledge from the man who knows zombies better than they know themselves, The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival will scare, teach, and prepare you for everything you’ve ever needed to know about zombies. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.