Sophia C. reviewed on 3/24/2011 + 289 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

A Japanophile friend once asked me why the Chinese harbor such animosity against the Japanese. When he rejected my suggestion that it might be due to the collective memory of the atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II—which I have always heard about growing up—in favor of propaganda spewed by the Chinese government, I decided to read The Rape of Nanking, the first full-length non-fiction account of the massacre in English, to learn more about this almost mythical event for myself. Chinese-American Iris Chang has laid out an organized and well-researched account of what happened in Nanking (now known as Nanjing) when the Japanese defeated the city in late 1937. The first half is a 360-degree view of the incident itself, from the perspectives of the Japanese conquerors, the Chinese victims, and the foreigners who tried to establish a 'Safety Zone' within the city. Be warned it starkly relates the story of massive scale rape, gruesome torture, and ruthless killing—with casualties rivaling those of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The second part is a scathing indictment of how the entire international community has allowed the Rape of Nanking to fade into historical obscurity, with the Japanese escaping without apologies, reparations, or even acknowledging the massacre even occurred in its history textbooks. Although a bit too finger-pointing for my taste, it makes the undeniable case that how Germany and the Holocaust were treated is vastly different from Japan and its aggressions during WWII. It is a shame that we lost the author Iris Chang to mental illness and suicide in 2004.

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