The Rape of Nanking

Rating:
Summary: A true revelation and comparison
Review: Certainly this is a good book that was written in simple and yet detailed accounts without leaving the readers exhausted or tired. The pictures were worth more than a thousand words too. Gory but it speaks its truth without further naration of words.

Its a humiliation that the Japanese government today dare to deny any of such cruelties and monstrous acts did not exist let alone the bombing of Pearl Harbor or their bloody involvement in the World War II. It is horrifying how their government can rewrite all textbooks used in Japanese schools and universities that Japanese had no such ties or relations in this inhuman bloody masacres or killings in wars. Thank God for all the photos and documentary films available in the West that will continue to constitute as solid evidence against their denials which lasts way into our future generations to come.

Today we see wars against Terrorists that killed innocent people and the persistence and perseverance of the US government to protect human lives and being have reminded us the fateful day when the atomic bombs were dropped in Nagasaki and Hiroshima had also stopped the inhuman Japanese acts done to humankind in many parts of Asia besides Nanking. This book and along with other history books served as reminder what has happened and what has got to be been done to stop the monstrous acts before it goes further and beyond. It has nothing to do with revenge or hatred against the Japanese today as claimed by some narrow minded persons. It has all got to do with reminding today's civilisation to continue living as human beings on earth instead of letting hunger for lust and power overcoming us which leads to destruction of innocent lives on earth.

Rating:
Summary: a middle ground opinion
Review: Based on other reviews, it seems that most readers are strongly for or strongly against Chang's portrayal of the Japanese occupation of Nanking. I would like to offer the opinion that both views are right and both views are wrong. There is some anti-Japanese bias, but that should be expected from any writer describing a tragedy involving family members. Chang's description, however, is valid as references are cited and (graphic) pictures are provided.

Readers wishing another viewpoint should consider The Good Man from Nanking

Rating:
Summary: Excellent document that will disturb any reader.
Review: Many historians have labled the Japanese soldiers of WWII as the most bestial and brutal of any modern-era army. Their atrocities throughout the Pacific during WWII make many Nazi crimes pale in comparison. This is an excellent book, well written, and deeply disturbing. Perhaps it is almost TOO graphic at some points, but that is not what I consider to be a major flaw.

Not for the timid.

Rating:
Summary: This book is really harmful
Review: When we review a book, we need to consider the following questions:

1. What impact does it have on its readers? Does it bring readers with different opinions closer and make them more willing to discuss the problem?

2. In a historical documentary like this, does it contribute to the process of truth-finding?

This book fails both. This book does nothing but creates further rifts between two nations. Chinese readers become emotional and irrational after reading this book and talk about a future massacre of Tokyo. On the other hand, it lends credibility to the right-wing Japanese, who say, this is the kind of lie that Chinese make up. With this book that apparently attacks the ethnic integrity of the Japanese nation, it clearly alienates many friendly or neutral Japanese that would have supported you otherwise.

It is OK to write histories, but when you attack a people ethnically as she did in this book (basically she was saying Japanese are a nation of beast), then you are nothing but a racist yourself. The end of the matter is, Japan and CHina are geographically determined to be with each other for ever, if people talk with this kind of tone, it does nothing but makes them fight for ever.

It is very easy for her to say that Japanese don't face history and are denying history. Maybe my view is cynical, but in general, most countries are uneasy about facing their dark history. We, as Americans, don't always admit every wrong we committed. There was much injustice we did to ethinic minorities in this country as well as to many countries where we had fought. But I don't recall any sort of "apology" we made.

Not mentioning history is different from denying history. Chang was saying Japanese were denying history because this history doesn't get mentioned. My question is: is it an obligation for a country to mention your crimes in the past once for a while? I ask: do Chinese textbooks ever mention about the wrongs they committed to the Vietnamese, Mongolians, Muslims, in the past? Some of our textbooks never mention some of the things we did.

Second about truth-finding. This book really creates a sort of hysteria. After you read her book, your feeling is that anything short of her account of the incident is revisionist. Japanese historians who disagree with the death toll are named revisionists. This name-labeling and political correctness really chokes off people's incentive to research further. Jonathan Spence, the foremost Chinese historian in the West, wrote in his textbook that there are about 50,000 deaths. He is a disinterested party and is Iris going to say that he is a revisionist as well?

Rating:
Summary: How Do You Describe A Book Like This?
Review: In this book, Iris Chang recounts the story of the Rape of Nanking, the main incident that drives a wedge of enmity between the Japanese and Chinese to this day. When Japanese soldiers descended on Nanking, they slaughtered, in cold blood, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. The book was so "to the point" in its horror(pictures of piles of bodies and severed heads included) that it made me want to throw up. I think the book did a good job in describing an event that very few people in the West know of. It is just right in the amount of disgust and types of emotions it evokes in people. However, it could have been more exciting, vivid, and explored some segments more deeply. Totally too gruesome for children, but the rest of us owe it to ourselves to read it, and attempt to prevent such things from happening later.

In response for all those people who ask why Chang doesn't give us a lecture on the atrocity of A-bombs or other incidents against humanity, her story was not about the Holocaust, or the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We cannot deny that these were horrendous as well, but we must also, when faced with the evidence, deal with the fact that the Japanese did in fact do this, and put aside for a moment whether or not Chang is biased. By arguing about the number of people who were killed or whether Chang is being unfair, we are only muting the voices of the victims. The most important thing is to realize that one isolated event cannot be used to judge an entire nation, nor should it be forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: The Japs were the scums of the earth
Review: The atrocities that Japs commited in Asian and especially in China are beyond comprehension. They were the worst of all living creatures. The fact that the only a small fraction of Japanese today acknolwledge these atocities is shocking. history might as repeat itself given similar conditions.
The bombing of Japan by the US during WWII is totally justified. I had only wished that more of the Japs were killed.

Rating:
Summary: an important look at yet another mass killing
Review: It wasn't just the sheer number of Chinese killed by the Japanese, it was the cruel way many were lit on fire, pierced, disembowled, speared, hacked, etc... with total abandon. The first few chapters are enough to sicken even those up on their Holocaust literature. Just when you thought man's inhumanity to man couldn't be worse than it was under Hitler, we back up a few years to 1937 and realize that cruelty has been around forever. The book would be even more depressing if Chang hadn't decided to focus also on some of the heros who saved hundreds sometimes thousands of Chinese from death and disfigurement. Although I knew of the rape of Nanking, I had no idea the depth and scope of the slaughter. Chang could have been more objective, but after reading the book, it is hard to say anything positive about the Japanese behavior. In another great book, 3 Daughters of China, it's clear that the Chinese had their share of poor behavior as well with the Japanese, but as far as scale, the Rape of Nanking takes the cake. A tough read content-wise, but an important study.

Rating:
Summary: The atrocities of the Japanese
Review: This book opens my eyes widely who the Japanese were during the 2nd World War. Of all the books that I had read about the Japs, this one leaves a deep, sorrow feeling in me.
I think this book deserves to be made as one of the most, inportant historical document by those who are interested in discovering more about the World War, particularly on those that happened in Asia.

Rating:
Summary: Truthful and Disturbing
Review: This is a brilliant work of history. Other readers who find
the author biased are themselves perhaps biased against truth.
That Japan's atrocities during the WWII era are not taken as
seriously in the West as Germany's atrocities, is largely due
to racism. I.E. cruelty and savagery against Asians is not
considered as newsworthy as cruelty and savagery against
Caucasians.

This book was a best-seller when it was published and deserves
an enduring place among literature.

Rating:
Summary: Objective and Courageous
Review: This is an extremely well-written, well-documented,
disturbing account of one of the worst war crimes of
modern times. Those readers who complain that the
author is biased against the Japanese are deceiving
themselves. Iris Chang's "bias" is a respect for the truth,
which is more you can say for Japanese apologists.

It is also silly to criticize the author for not writing
about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, since that is
not the subject of the book.

I am an American who finds the bombings of civilian populations to be objectionable and immoral. But of course this very practice was started on a wide scale by the Japanese in the 1930s.

The lack of attention paid in the West to Japanese war crimes
in the WWII era is probably due to racism. There was hatred
among Americans and Australians for the way the Japanese treated
POWs, but the brutal treatment of the Japanese towards Asian populations was overlooked. The fact is that Japanese war crimes against Asian civilian populations were as brutal and widespread as the Germans' atrocities in Russia and Eastern Europe.

Iris Chang barely mentions the Japanese rape of Manilla or the treatment of POWs in her book. Had she wanted to write a more damning book on Japan, there was plenty of material for her to draw from. Instead she wrote a restrained, hearfelt work of history which will endure as long as there are readers who respect truth.