World War Z as a Sociopolitical Assessment of Globalization
World War Z as a Sociopolitical Assessment of Globalization World War Z showed readers that what may have worked in peace time was unsuited for war. By doing so Brooks was able to make a good assessment of our current global systems with the overarching evaluation of globalization’s literal and metamorphical infectiousness. He uses the novel to comment on the social issues such as government ineptitude, while also playing on innate human fear and our ability to adapt to new situations for the sake of survivability. By adding an overarching apocalyptic theme with a touch of old-fashioned zombie gore, Brooks is able to provide a thoughtful, entertaining assessment of how different parts of the world would react to a widespread crisis. World War Z is one of the most creative social commentary of our times. It is chilling, to say the least, not only because of the ghouls themselves, but also how the rest of the world reacts to them. Max Brooks was able to depict a huge range of motivations and human intentions in this novel that could be comparable to a sociological study of humans in a time of crisis. He also does an excellent job of describing the sort of cold, logical planning that was necessary in order to survive a zombie apocalypse and that even after the war is over, the world still has a long way to go before it can move on. Survivalism and disaster preparedness are two other dominant themes in the novel. Many of the interviews in World War Z that come from United States citizens focus on policy changes with the intent of training themselves to thwart off zombie attacks and, in a post-apocalyptic world, rebuilding the country to its former glory. This was an interesting policy for the United States to take up, as it completely changed the social hierarchy by putting the working class mechanic above the CEO of a multimillion dollar corporation (Brooks, 2006: 140). Throughout the novel, Brooks repeatedly presents characters with the sort of mental and