Early Book Review: A History of the Undead: Mummies, Vampires and Zombies by Charlotte Booth

A History of the Undead: Mummies, Vampires and Zombies by Charlotte Booth is a nonfiction book currently scheduled for release on January 31 2021. Are you a fan of the undead? Watch lots of Mummy, zombie and vampire movies and TV shows? Have you ever wondered if they could be 'real'? This book unravels the truth behind these popular reanimated corpses. Starting with the common representations in Western Media through the decades, we go back in time to find the origins of the myths. Using a combination of folklore, religion and archaeological studies we find out the reality behind the walking dead. You may be surprised at what you find.

A History of the Undead is an informative, entertaining, and engaging read. I like that the author acknowledges the amount of information of the subjects in the world, and that they are only tackling a fairly small segment of it. By focusing only on the subject in one part of the world she was able to get a great deal of detail about the undead in Western culture. If they had tried to tackle the whole world this would have had to be a multi-volume set. Although, I would not mind seeing this fleshed out to a more inclusive and expansive series including all cultures. I enjoyed seeing stories I knew from history, and some of the entertainment items I have enjoyed get mentioned. I was sad to see some things I thought would have added to the book left out (particularly a couple zombie books that stood out to me) and mentioning certain movies (like Dark Shadows) without referring to the television series that it was based on. However, I also got a chance to get the names for some books, movies, and games that I have missed over the years and will now get to enjoy. These subjects are vast, and while there where some missing things along the way, and some chooses in wording of information here or there that had me less than thrilled, I think the author did a good job of getting the information compiled in a readable and engaging fashion. The recovered English major that I am, I was thrilled to see proper citing of sources, et all. Way too often I see nonfiction materials for a variety of audiences that fail to do so. 

A History of the Undead is a well written and researched introduction to the evolution of mummies, zombies, and vampires in western cultures, entertainment, and media.