What Do We Know About Zombies?

They are . . .
Thought to be dead people who have been brought back to life
Slow-moving beings with rotting flesh and no will of their own
Frightening creatures who have been the inspiration for many horrific books, movies, and television shows

The What Do We Know About? series explores the mysterious, the unknown, and the unexplained. Are zombies real, myth, or legend? Find out all we know about the history of zombies.

Zombies—the undead—have long been a subject of fascination. But can the dead really be brought back to life?

When explorer William Seabrook first recorded details of his travels in Haiti in 1929, he explained witnessing undead people working in the sugarcane fields there. He also wrote about Haitian stories that explained zombies as undead people who had been forced into labor.

Since then, zombie lore has expanded and changed based on location and culture, and zombies have become a hot topic in Hollywood and popular media. They gained widespread Western interest when the movie Night of the Living Dead premiered in 1968. In this book, readers will learn about the folklore of zombies and all manner of the living dead, including how zombies continue to strike fear into the hearts of countless people.