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Summary: Population of Nanking in 1937
Review: The first issue that must be addressed in any discussion of the Nanking Incident is: What was the population of Nanking when the Japanese attacked the city in December 1937?On December 1, 1937, Ma Chaojun, the mayor of Nanking, ordered all residents to take refuge in a zone administered by the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone (referred to hereafter as the "International Committee"). After providing the Committee with a supply of rice and wheat, some currency, and a few police officers, Ma fled Nanking on the heels of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and other Nationalist leaders. By that time, Nanking's wealthy and middle-class residents, as well as the city's government officials, had already fled to the upper reaches of the Yangtze. The majority of those remaining in Nanking were poor people, who lacked the means to travel elsewhere. At that time, Nanking was the capital of China. The word "capital" usually conjures up an image of a huge city, but Nanking is far smaller than Kyoto, Beijing, or Shanghai. According to a 1937 map, the city measured five kilometers from east to west. It was possible to walk from the largest gate, Zhongshan Gate, to Hanzhong Gate in about an hour. From Zhonghua Gate at the south end of the city, one could walk the 11 kilometers to Yijiang Gate, at the north end, in less than two-and-a-half hours. Nanking occupied an area of approximately 40 square kilometers (if one includes Xiaguan, which is outside the city limits), equivalent to 70% of Manhattan Island (57 square kilometers). Within its narrow confines were an airfield, low mountains, and farms. The Safety Zone was established in a 3.8-square-kilometer area of Nanking, about the size of New York City's Central Park (3.4 square kilometers). It was administered by the members of the International Committee, all of whom were citizens of foreign nations. They gathered all the residents into the Safety Zone and endeavored to feed and house them. Between December 13 (the day the Japanese breached the gates of Nanking) and February 9, 1938, the International Committee issued 69 missives addressed and hand-delivered to the Japanese, American, British, and German embassies, on an almost daily basis. Most of them are complaints about misconduct on the part of Japanese military personnel, or pleas to military authorities to improve public safety or supply food to the refugees. These 69 documents are contemporaneous records, and should certainly be considered primary sourced. Unfortunately, the Japanese Foreign Ministry burned them toward the end of World War II, so the Embassy's copies are no longer extant. But they were compiled by Dr. Hsu Shuhsi, a professor at Beijing University, under the title Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone. Many of them also appear in What War Means, edited by Manchester Guardian correspondent Harold Timperley, and were submitted as evidence to the IMTFE. The version edited by Hsu Shuhsi bears the imprimatur of the Nationalist government: "Prepared under the auspices of the Council of International Affairs, Chunking". It was published by the Shanghai firm Kelly & Walsh in 1939. Any discourse on the Nanking Incident that disregards these valuable resources is suspect.
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Summary: China's Forged Claims
Review: World War II and the movement of Resistance were the 'Battle against Fascism'. Therefore, the false assumption was made that Japan was regarded as same as Hitler's Germany and such absurd remark has been spread within Japan and it is indeed unbearable. For that very reason, I, with a firm conviction, wrote this review in order to counter-attack such false assumption.
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Summary: A chronicle of crimes against humanity
Review: "do not be credulous"'s assertions of Japanese innocence aside, Iris Chang writes of the Japanese atrocities with a journalist's skill and the passion of one of the races victimized by the Japanese. As one of the reviewers of the book, Frederic Wakeman - director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at UC Berkeley - notes, many Japanese have denied that the Rape of Nanking took place and have substituted amnesia for guilt. I would suspect "do not be credulous's" poor English and assertion that Chinese committed the atrocities at Nanking and that Chinese were safer in areas controlled by Japanese to be an example of Mr. Wakeman's assertion. The author has given us a readable - only because of her writing and editing style, NOT because of the facts contained in her book - book of a horrific episode in history. We owe it to the victims to not forgot what happened to them.
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Summary: do not be credulous
Review: First of all, I pray for all victims mentioned in this book. But may all the readers keep in mind that this book is just an elaborate propaganda against Japan. The victims in the book were NOT killed by Japanese army BUT were killed by unorganized private Chinese armed gangsters, who were unfortunately very popular during the confusion in China. On the contrary to stories in this book, a lot of Japanese were also killed in cruel way in Tong zhou Incident and more.
After WWII, Chinese government just fabricated odious stories that Japanese military were in charge of criminals as mentioned in this book. One of the reasons is that People's Republic of China (current Chinese Government) has had to do with those gangsters very deep and hopeless way and they had to hide the truth and Chinese government took very mean way that they blamed the mass killings for Japanese military just contrary to the facts. This is also used to control people by making a common enemy to make unity and hide what they really have been doing since WW2 until now (please remember Tiananmen massacre and what they are doing in Tibet and Uyghur). What is more, they used their propaganda to take advantage to get financial aide as penance from Japanese governments.
There is a fact that the places under controlled by Japanese military were much safer than any other places in China, and the population in such places drastically increased even though it was during the war. A lot of Chinese refugee came into there, while there were a lot of brutal beating and murder by Chinese gangsters.
Please do not be naive for dark politics and credulous if you will read this book. There are a lot of emotional comments here but basically they allege the same things as the author of this book did. I hope it will be the day when Japan will be totally exculpated and people will know the truth.
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Summary: one of the darkest moments in the history of war
Review: I am neither Chinese nor Japanese. The argument here is not the exact number of people killed, but the manner in which they were killed. I am apalled by the utter lack of morals of the Japanese army and their absolute lack of respect for human life either man, woman or child. While the specifics of the events will never be ironed out, what this book provides is a graphic and deeply disturbing snapshot of one of the darkest moments in the history of mankind. It wasn't long after that the Japanese themselves learnt a painful lesson via Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While it may be very hard for us to comprehend the sadistic behavior of our fellow humans, may God provide comfort to *all* the innocent victims of war.
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Summary: Fiction in the Rape of Nanking
Review: --
Iris Chang: "More than 260,000 noncombatants died, ...well over 350,000...a few statistics must be used to give the reader an idea of the scale of the massacre...the killing was concentrated within a few weeks." (pp.4~5, Penguin paperback edition) Basic question: "How can 260,000 to over 350,000 noncombatants be killed in a city of 200,000, which increased to 250,000 a month later, right after all 'the killing' supposedly take place?" :
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Summary: Chinese Army violated the international law.
Review: --
The war was between the Japanese and Chinese soldiers. Never between the Japanese Army and the Chinese civilians. However, the Chinese government enforced an insane strategy against the Japanese Army. It was the Guerrilla Tactics. The Chinese soldiers pretended as the civilians by wearing farmer's worn out clothes, so the Japanese Army treated them as the civilians. When the Japanese soldiers lost their tenseness by accepting the guerrilla as the civilians, the guerrillas grabbed their canons and guns.
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Summary: reveals the worst thing human could do
Review: World War II has produced one of the most savagery and disastrous events in human history. Of those, the Nanking Massacre showed the most ruthlessness of humankind, in which uncountable number of torture, incineration, mutilation, and rape were committed by the Japanese. However, despite of its scale and degree of cruelty, the Japanese invasion of Nanking is concealed and unknown by most of people in the world. Hence, the author of "The Rape of Nanking", Iris Chang unveils the event with well-detailed information and individual stories as a massage to people in the world, making it unforgettable to those who receive the massage. She succeeds to expose the fact of the Japanese inhumanity seen by civilians in Nanking.
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Summary: An important book for history
Review: Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking is an important book. It is a gripping account of a tragic, bloody moment of history. Until now this horror has too often been ignored. Ms. Chang has changed the debate, and the truth of history now benefits. This is a highly controversial book (many passionately disagree with it citing alleged errors), but it is well researched and carefully written. Highly recommended.
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Summary: This is Nothing but Propaganda.
Review: --
Iris Chang's "Rape of Nanking" is a book that fails to heal but rather sears all efforts for good international relations because it prioritizes passion at the cost of basic historical facts. We cannot ignore the book's inability and refusal, as witnessed by the usage of numerous doctored photos, to differentiate between fact and war-time propaganda.
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