American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture

Zombie stories are peculiarly American, as the creature was born in the New World and functions as a reminder of the atrocities of colonialism and slavery. The voodoo-based zombie films of the 1930s and '40s reveal deep-seated racist attitudes and imperialist paranoia, but the contagious, cannibalistic zombie horde invasion narrative established by George A. Romero has even greater singularity.

This book provides a cultural and critical analysis of the cinematic zombie tradition, starting w...