The following version of the book was used to create this study guide: Ireland, Justina, Dread Nation. HarperCollins, New York, NY, 2018. Kindle AZW file.

Government officials took Jane McKeene from her home at Rose Hill plantation in Kentucky when she was 14 years of age. It was not an isolated incident because a law was in place that required all young blacks and Indians to attend one of the schools that taught how to fight the shamblers. Shamblers are those that have risen from the dead and are no longer thinking people but are now brutal, thoughtless killers. Though Jane now attends Miss Preston's School of Combat, one of the better, more comprehensive programs, she longs for Rose Hill. Jane feels that if she can just earn her certificate, she will be in a position to make more choices for herself, meaning she can choose to return to Rose Hill. By the time the events of this novel take place, Jane has not heard from her mother in months and she fears that her mother is dead.

Jane was born to Ophelia McKeene, the mistress of Rose Hill. Jane was born too dark to hide the fact that she has black ancestry; however, Ophelia raises her on the edge of society, teaching Jane to read and fit in during social occasions. Nevertheless, Jane will never be accepted by society. Slavery is illegal following the end of the War between the States, which came to a brutal conclusion when the dead began to rise.

With the end of her education in sight, Jane ends up in the public eye when she kills some shamblers at a public gathering. A few days later, Jane and Katherine Deveraux (her fellow student) are ordered to attend a formal dinner at the home of the Baltimore mayor. However, they are not invited as guests. They are to serve as Attendants, paid companions charged with keeping their patrons safe from shamblers. During that dinner party, Jane encounters her former boyfriend, Jackson Keats, who pleads for Jane's help to find his younger sister, Lily. Jane is going through the mayor's home office when she and Jackson are caught. Jackson, Jane, and Katherine are immediately shipped to Summerland, a new town in Kansas that officials are touting as a safe utopia.

Summerland shows promise of having good leaders, but Jane and Katherine soon discover that there are brutal, ignorant men in charge of the town. Jane and Katherine know they are not safe. After befriending an inventor named Gideon Carr, son of the Baltimore mayor, they learn that he created a Faraday cage, powered by shamblers. The cage provides electric lights to the wealthy side of town. While Jane and Katherine are plotting to take down the town's officials, shamblers breach the wall surrounding the town. Jane and Katherine, along with Jackson and his little sister, join a group that runs for their lives. Jane feels that it is no longer enough to fight small bands of shamblers. She must also face-down the ruling political party if she wants to create real change in this new world.