The Rape of Nanking

Rating:
Summary: Impressive, but definitely biased and exaggerated
Review: I only had a few problems with this book, so I'll touch on those problems rather briefly:

This book does seem to create alot of moral arguments, but I'll touch on the two that seem most significant to me; namely, the atomic bombings and the persistent Japanese denial/apology argument that seems somewhat pervasive.

Is the Rape of Nanking any worse than the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Maybe. Does Chang insinuate that the Rape of Nanking has precedence over the bombings? Maybe. Is that your decision to make?

Undeniably, yes.

I feel Chang doesn't touch on the topic because, quite frankly, she doesn't need to. We all know that we firebombed the hell out of Tokyo and dropped nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Does she need to give you a lecture on the A-bombings? I don't think so; apparently, neither does she.

For alot of the book, Chang does seem biased, and her exclusion of any major discussion on the Nagasaki/Hiroshima bombings could be seen as bias. However, I think she was correct to refrain from touching on this topic. If you want to know about the bombings, there's ALOT of material available out there. Whatever opinion you formulate from that material is exclusively yours.

On the subject of Japan's persistent denial/apology complex, that's again another arbitary decision. There are people today who think the Germans should have made different reparations as a result of the event they perpetrated. There are people today who deny the Holocaust ever occured. Do I think Chang is biased on this subject? Yep. Do I think she's right? Somewhat. Do others think she's wrong? Yep.

I'll be blunt, I don't know jack about "picture fabrication". In my opinion though, denying the validity of this book and it's pictures is about paramount to denying the Nazi-perpetrated holocaust, which in and of itself strikes me as a little... ridiculous, if you ask me.

All in all, Iris Chang wrote a sound book. I do agree that some of the statistical figures are most likely exaggerated and that Chang (as well as most of the other reviewers here) shows a great deal of bias, but I don't believe that necessarily makes "The Rape of Nanking" any less significant. To my knowledge, this is one of the few books available on the market discussing the events that transpired, which in and of itself makes this book important.

In terms of information, the only parts I find seriously flawed are the statistics. The realistic number for the deaths at Nanking is probably somewhere in the 20,000-50,000 range, although I have no doubt that the casualty number could easily have been equated to the number Chang provided.

To conclude, I highly recommend this book, but I also suggest you take it with a decent amount of skepticism. It's an excellent read, but as my topic (and several other people) stated, it is "somewhat" biased and "somewhat" exaggerated in terms of figures and events.

Rating:
Summary: Please do not forget this tragedy
Review: I read through the book and I think it is a very nicely written one. One minor point is that it would be nicer to note in the text the references documents in the style of academic articles. That would be easier for readers who are interested in digging into the original documents themselves. Nonetheless, I think that this book gave a very clear view of one of the saddest event ever happened in human history in a way that can be understood by general public.

I strongly disagreed with one of the reader's review for criticizing this book as "ridiculous". The reasons for my disagreement are as followed:
1. Criticizing Point:
"Iris Chang is a fourth-Generation Chinese American. She does not speak or understand any of the languages needed to examine this issue (Chinese, Japanese and German). I have concluded that all information used in this book is second-hand information, most of them is propaganda."

Disagreement:
First of all, there are a lot of first hand references written in English, as were listed in the book. In fact, one of the reasons that Nanking Massacre was known to the world was because quite a few Europeans and Americans happened to witness and documented the event. If the reviewer considered none of those documents are first-hand documents, I am not sure what the definition of "first-hand" information is. In addition, some of the documents are even reported by Japanese themselves. It is not reasonable to report something against their own country if it is not truth, especially during the war time.

Second, according to what the author stated in the book, the author is a second generation Chinese American (not a very important point here, but it implies the reviewer may not read the book clearly before jumping into conclusion). In her book she thanks her parents and many other people for helping her translating needed documents from different languages. Many of these helpers are scholars with knowledge of multi-languages. Take her parent as an example, they were born in Mainland China, grew up in Taiwan and received their Ph.D.s from Harvard University in American. Is it reasonable to believe that they have enough knowledge in both Chinese and English to translating some of those documents for her?

2. Criticizing Point:
The reviewer stated: "My great uncle was in the Japanese Army. He told me several times not to believe in this kind of nonsense. It is impossible to kill so many people in such a short period. Especially with soldiers who were not equipped with machine guns or other weapons for mass-destruction. Just take a minute and think. According to my uncle, it took almost 3 days to burn 6 corpses of his comrades after an attack. How long will it take to burn 300.000 corpses?"

Disagreement:
First, it maybe true to take 3 days to completely burn 6 bodies. However, we were not talking about cremation ceremony here. We were talking about burn to death. How many minutes can a human being endure before he or she was burn to death? Thanks heaven it is not 3 days!! Besides, if the reviewer had read through the book (or any other documents), not all 300,000 corpses were burn, a lot of them were buried or dumped into river. Please read the book before jump into conclusion and make such a harsh criticism.

Second, Japanese soldier did have machine gun. Of course not as powerful as the modern model, but they did have machine gun. Japanese did not start the war un-prepared. Besides, how difficult it is to kill civilians (especially elderly, small children and babies) who have no weapon at all? It did not even need weapons for mass-destruction. In addition, if one likes to play the number, here it is: The number of the Japanese troop invaded Nanking was around 50, 000. The peak of the ciaos was around 6 to 8 weeks. The conservative estimation of casualty is from 260, 000 to 350,000 during that period. Do the math yourself! See how possible it is! I have to emphasize that it is not my intension to use these numbers to prove the Massacre did occurred, that would be too shaky. The real evidences were presented in the book and the documents it referred. I merely use these numbers here to show that one can not use these numbers to claim it is not possible that the Massacre occurred.

Third, though I have no intension to dishonor anybody's ancestor, I have to point out that the credential of reviewer's great uncle's words is really questionable for the following reasons:

Scenario 1: His great uncle was in Nanking with the Japanese army while the Massacre occurred. Then it is possible he participated in the crime (thought may not be voluntarily, I hope). It is a common sense that one can not use the words from the accused as objective evidence. Especially when he or she is denying the crime accused.

Scenario 2: His great uncle was not in Nanking while the Massacre occurred. Then all he knew about the event were from the propaganda in the army, which by all means could only be more misleading than any outside propaganda.

One question I would like to ask here: how many casualties qualify it as a massacre? Even if it is propaganda, even if only 10% or even 1% of the reports were true, it is still a horrible crime. Besides, Nanking Massacre was such a crime not only for the number of civilian casualty, but also the cruel way the victims were killed. Think about it, if one of the women, just ONE, that were tortured, raped, before they were killed were your own mother, wife or daughter, could anyone just shrug and say "it is ridiculous, it is just propaganda...."? If one of the victims of the "killing game" (reported by the Japanese newspaper, not Western or Chinese propaganda) is your own father, brother or son, could anyone just shrug and say "it is ridiculous, it is just propaganda...."?

A tragedy such as this must not be forgotten if we don't want history repeat itself. Human being will only advance if we can recognize the mistakes we made and put in effort to prevent it from happening again.

Rating:
Summary: Difficult To Imagine This Could Go Unnoticed...
Review: The Rape of Nanking is a bitter episode of human brutality, and it's difficult to read the chronicle without feeling twinges of remorse and horror, even more than 55 years later. The suffering pressed upon the Chinese by the Japanese invaders is harrowing, yet at the same time, oddly compelling; one wonders what could have propelled these soldiers and officers to commit such unspeakable crimes. That the majority of the perpetrators were never prosecuted by the United Nations is unforgiveable, especially in light of film footage and other damning documentation provided by American missionaries and--believe it or not--a Nazi named Rabe who lived in Nanjing at the time. Self-possessed Japanese citizens to this day deny this event ever occurred, despite the evidence to the contrary. This is perhaps the last insult added to injury...that so many thousands could have perished unnoticed, and that the aggressors know no shame for their actions.

Rating:
Summary: Normally I try to be witty in my reviews
Review: It just ain't gonna happen this time. I happened upon this book when searching for a primer on Chinese history and I figured I'd mix the general with the specific and grabbed both.

Well, as you might suspect, I finished this book in a 3 day period and I've barely begun the other book. I'm not a religious guy, but reading the first half of this book requires a Job-like outlook. You'll believe human suffering is at its apex and then, wham, you'll hear yet another horrific story involving a partial beheading, a mass public immolation, or weapon-forced incest. Ms. Chang at her best when she chronicles the horrors found via diary or interview. While she's a tad polemical, these silent victims dramatically need their polemicist.

Why only 4 stars? Ms. Chang's work on the broader picture--the cultural, political, and organizational causes of the massacre and its "non-issueness" after the war--wasn't compelling. If you wanna understand why the Japanese Army did what it did, you're gonna need to look somewhere else. If you wanna understand why Japanese society works so hard to deny the massacre, ya gotta look somewhere else. If you wanna understand how a disciplined organization turned into a Sierra Leone-like thugs, it's somewhere else.

Rating:
Summary: This is book is really ridiculous
Review: Iris Chang is a fourth-Generation Chinese American. She does not speak or understand any of the languages needed to examine this issue (Chinese, Japanese and German). I have concluded that all information used in this book is second-hand information, most of them is propaganda. My great uncle was in the Japanese Army. He told me several times not tobelieve in this kind of nonsense. It is impossible to kill so many people in such a short period. Especially with soldiers who were not equipped with machine guns or other weapons for mass-destruction. Just take a minute and think. According to my uncle, it took almost 3 days to burn 6 corpses of his comrades after an attack. How long will it take to burn 300.000 corpses? If you think pictures don't lie...

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and informative, but poorly written
Review: The Rape of Nankingking provides a startling and horrific account of some of the events that took place during WWII in China. While we all know about Nazi brutality in Germany, very few people are aware of the extent of Japanese brutality in China, including myself. I had always understood Chinese survivors of WWII vehemently hate the Japanese, but The Rape of Nanking was able to describe (to a limited extent) the hatred and suffering of the Chinese in the hands of the Japanese.
However, the analysis left me wondering whether the author did a thorough job of research or whether she was simply not a strong writer. She glosses over facts and provides very limited analyses of socio-political environment. While a few of the other reviewers defend her style of writing because she comes from a journalistic background rather than academic, it should still not be an excuse to gloss over facts and provide superficial analyses.
As one reviewer states, her analyses rests upon stereotypical notions of Japanese behaviour. While I do not doubt the brutal treatment of the Japanese soldiers upon the Chinese, I found myself turning page after page, hoping for a more deeper and thorough analysis.
Nonetheless, the book is both educational and an eye-opener. It has certainly brought into the mainstream the brutality and suffering taken place, but the author would serve well to improve her writing and analyses.

Rating:
Summary: The lost souls of Nanking A Must Read!!!
Review: I was really gob smacked, horrified of the Nanking massacre, it was absolutely atrocious. This book is a must. Bringing the history is very noble, worthy cause with honours. I am appalled at the denial of this massacre by the Japanese government who have not openly admitted to the atrocities, no compensation to the victims, educational system ignores Nanking. I really hope the Japanese government or leaders have the courage to say sorry in a big way before the few survivors perish.

I watched a Uk Tv about Unit 731, the inhuman biologial warfare where more than 10000 Chinese slaughtered + Russians and the top Japanese historian failed to mention this in any of his history books despite incredible amount of evidence from the victims put through by the British interviewer.

I am very proud of Iris Chang who stood up and gave a big shout for these victims, the undeniable truth of Nanking. Lets hope the sick Japanese right wingers dont have their way.

Rating:
Summary: The Rape of Nanking: History Recreates Itself
Review: If there is one thing that history teaches us, it is that people like to ignore the distasteful truth, or if they can't do that, to bury or to distort it. As astounding as it may be, there are history deniers or revisionists who insist that the genocide that occurred in Europe in the early 1940s or in Nanking in 1937 simply did not happen or at most, only a few isolated instances of eminently justified killing took place. Iris Chang in THE RAPE OF NANKING effectively refutes the arguments of the revisionists who claim that the Rape either (a) did not happen or (b) were grossly exaggerated. In court, direct testimony from eye-witnesses is usually good enough to convince a fair-minded jury that some crime has occurrerd. When that eye-witness testimony is linked to authentic documents, the results are usually taken as valid. Iris Chang explains a story not unlike a similar tale that could be told of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. In both Germany and Japan, these countries' respective leaders blamed a world of hurt and national pain on an outside group. The Jews and the Chinese were handy punching bags for a large and well-equipped army that had for years been taught hate as a means to redirect the brutality that also had been dumped on them by sadistic leaders. No one knows the full extent of the genocide in Nanking, but estimates of 100,000 dead and tortured are accepted as reasonable. It is difficult to read Chang's book and then listen complacently to a Japanese premier who defends his country's right not to include mention of the Rape of Nanking in his nation's history books. The result of deliberately turning a blind eye and deaf ear to your own country's mass killing of others is simply to invite a repeat. It is not enough to call Chang a liar. If one wishes to refute her book, then do so in the realm of the scholarly journal or reasoned text, and not on the Tokyo 6 PM nightly news, crying once again how the Chinese are trying to stir up old feelings of animosity.

Rating:
Summary: Grisly account of a savage event
Review: This book details the intense, savage bloodletting that occurred after the Japanese army occupied the city of Nanking in China. Mass rapes, mass torture, and mass executions in every imaginable way (beheading, burial alive, burning, etc.) was common during the occupation. While exact numbers will likley never be known, it is believed that well over 100,000 Chinese lost their lives.

Readers of this unrelenting book will grimace at photos of victims of the Japanese army including a man in the process of being beheaded, recoil at the glib reporting of a "beheading contest" in a Japanese newspaper in which two Japanese officers see who can decapitate the most Chinese, and finally have some of their faith in humanity restored by heroes in the foreign section of Nanking that refused to leave and saved countless Chinese lives in the process. Especially interesting is that one of the heroes was an ardent Nazi by the name of John Robe. He saved countless lives and risked death numerous times at the hands of the Japanese army.

This book is not for the weak of heart. It is relentless and pulls no punches in the telling of the horrors inflicted on the populace of Nanking. However, it is essential reading for those interested in the Chinese-Japanese War and the period before World War II.

Rating:
Summary: Another example of popular antagonism toward Japan
Review: Born and raised in Taiwan, I must say that the popular opinion of the so-called "Nanking Massacre" during Sino-Japanese War has been ridiculously biased in favor of the Kuomingtang's autocratic rule over docile native Formosans.

As a Christian I feel indescribable sorrow that people are less interested in presenting this particular incident in a more subjective view--not jumping into conclusion on basis of questionable documents and verbal accounts. I have known people today who deeply resent the Japanese because of what happened in during the war, and would go to the extreme of boycotting anything Japanese. Works like this tile, while interesting and well put together, can easily provoke hatred against people and even lead to manipulation. I suggest that one reads it with a sizable grain of salt.
While Chang appeals to the sympathetic readers, she fails to point out the UNDENIABLE HISTORICAL facts that Chiang Kai-shek and other leaders cravenly fled the nation's capital, leaving the defenseless men, women, and children--combatants and noncombants-alike--facing the enemy.