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Summary: one of the most cruel incidents in the world history
Review: I really hate the content of this book, but it gave me big impact and deep sadness. This book is really important for me. It was good opportunity to know what we Japanese people did for a long time ago. What Japanese soldiers did such as murdering innocent people, raping women, treating people as targets of sword practice should not be forgiven. I really felt it. Since my room mate is Chinese, I had something feeling sorry in my mind after reading this book.
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Summary: Great book, well written
Review: This is the book we need to remember what happened in the history, not to hate, but to prevent it from happening again. Some readers from Japan migth be unhappy with it. They used some "fact" they were told in Japan to prove that this book is "forgery" . One of them said Nanjing only had a population of 200,000 at that time. It is true that the city normally held about 250,000 people, but by the mid-1930s its population had swollen to more than 1 million. Many of them were refugees, fleeing from the Japanese armies which had invaded China. Another reader comment from Japan said the 300,000 body would have filled the streets of Nanjing up, but the fact was those animals didn't kill all the people in one day, the holocaust lasted for more than six weeks. The holocaust was terrible, however, unwilling to recognize it or trying to forget is much more terrible.
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Summary: A strange but emotional book.
Review: Why would i call it strange? It's because the author, Iris Chang, had written two-sided faces of the Japanese soldiers that we have come to hate them for cruelty but i'm still wondering if these cold-blooded animals have real emotions underneath that tough exterior. Writing down that they shivered during killing, makes me laugh as i thought killing was their only motives/thought and can never believe that a Japanese soldiers actually feel pity for the Chinese soldiers when they surrended but it can never be erase away in our mind especially after reading this book, it provide lots of details of the suffering,tortured,rape and murdered by the Japanese Army. It is so real that you can actually feel you are on board in the World War II with Nanking in 1937. I truly believe this is a must read book for every Japanese who want to know more about the history event and which i really truly believe the Japanese ought to learn something from this book but this event should move on as it has been reminded for too long and it stresses a lot of people especially the survivors but it is going to be the first and last tragic event ever happen to Asia.
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Summary: Most compelling book--no stone unturned
Review: The most horrifying story is one that is true. Chang's wise account includes multiple viewpoints to get behind the story and helps the reader to understand this horrible massacre. Chang leaves no stone unturned for the reader. While Stanley Milgram's obedience studies indirectly created a base for understanding German killing in concentration camps, The Rape of Nanking exhibits the direct relationships between complex social situations and human behavior at its ugliest. Chang is a brilliant public speaker and a fantastic author. --------------------------------------- A sociological, psychological, historical, and political must-read
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Summary: Informative, well organized book on horrific event.
Review: This is a compact and easy to read book which introduces the reader to one of the barely remembered yet utterly monstrous outrages of WWII. Ms Chang writes with a controlled and well-measured sense of moral outrage. Although the author's Chinese ancestry may render her work suspect to a Japenese reader, I am convinced that her scholarship will stand all challenges. Admirably, she refuses to villify the Japenese as a race. She is more than equable in providing a revealing and sympathetic glimpse into the cult of Japanese bushido society with its militarist penchant for the use of domination, humilation, subjugation and terror in controlling its own armed forces and citizenry. Her observation that "civilation" is paper-thin is on-target. Her suggestion that perverse concentrations of vast power in the hands of a few must inevitably lead to atrocities on a scale equal to the magnitude of undiluted power reconciles with history. Having read extensively on Hitler and his Reich, the Rape of Nanking seems a much less premeditated, "sophisticated" and protracted event than the Holocaust. Its intensity, unbridled cruelty, misogyny and ghastly babarity mark it for much deeper analysis. The Rape of Nanking may tell us more about our darker selves and the disastrous effect of militant totalitarianism than even the Holocaust and Ms Chang must be praised for awakening us to this lowest of points in our world history.
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Summary: Compelling Story, Flawed Telling
Review: While this is an important and largely ignored story, Iris Chang occasionally lapses into melodrama telling it. There were passages where I could almost hear soundtrack cues. However, it is worth some of the flawed writing to read about a buried chapter of 20th century history, and learn some of the background of the current enmity in the Far East.
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Summary: Overhelming .. But carefull
Review: I read the book within 48h, it iswell written indeed, the autor is a talented journalist.. BUT she's not historian furthermore her close link to the tragedy (it was a tragedy) arouse questions. After some research, I discover that several aspect of the books, and not only details were if not false, but incorrect, inexact, and biaised. Imperial Japan (like Nazi Germany)did bad, really bad things. Those crimes must undestand and prevented to happen again. But Japan (a democracy) like the German Republic are different now and can't be judged on those past actions. The book unfortunalty doesn't give me this impression. World is not black and white, Japan is a democracy, but I agree that some effort must be made for the apology; China is a dictature responsible for the death of millions of their own people. Fact should be the only source of that kind of books, not hanger.
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Summary: Not an urban folklore...not a fabrication...it's the truth
Review: Just like Ms. Chang, I heard about the Nanking Massacre since a little girl. Although the book might have been written in a subjective tone, the truth and facts, especially the authenticity of the photographs, shall not be dismissed. I believe the purpose of this book is not to turn one race against another but to tell the world of this horrible Nanking holocaust that took place some sixty years ago. While Ms. Chang may not be a historian, I think she did an outstanding job in re-telling the Nanking atrocities through the eyes of millions of Chinese. If anyone is dubious about the Nanking Massacre, please don't just simply dismiss it--go do some research at the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia or at the IMTFE.
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Summary: Invaluable representation of the invasion of Nanking
Review: This was an honest and horrific telling of the events surrounding the invasion of Nanking. Iris Change made it easy to sympathize with the victims and ask all the appropriate questions in relation to the consequences of the (war) criminal behavior. The upcoming Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery to be held in Tokyo, Japan in December 2000, is an one opportunity to discuss the potential prosecution of those war criminals. I am in agreement with the concept of justice being implanted into the minds of the victims, families of victims and into the minds of the war criminals, as it relates to assisting them with feelings of remorse. I believe the sense of despair and futility felt by the victims who were repeatedly tortured, and the response of those who survived their traumas, is all that is necessary for prosection of humans capable of committing such crimes. There is often a lack of appropriate attention given to such atrocities. In addition, through discussion, implementation of right responses and punishments for such crimes, there is the potential to lessen the severity of a next war. Annoucing the magnitude of the victims suffering, Iris Chang draws those who would not have been active in preventing and having a deep concern for such crimes. Through her descriptions, she offers hope for those who continue to be and to become victims despite the wealth of knowledge to which we have access. In particular, the descriptions of the rape and forced pornography of the chinese women are experiences that we should fight to prevent on daily basis in all countries. Iris Chang does wonderful job in bringing to light the varieties of tortures the Japanese used to maintain control of Nanking and the satanic influence had as they committed these crimes, simply by describing the events in detail. Because of the severity of the war crimes, I had a difficult time finishing the book. I thank Irish Chang for doing the research, writing, and making millions more aware of the invasion of Nanking. I look forward to her next book.
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Summary: Where are the historical facts?
Review: This book is based on information that has been proven to be in error by many scholars. A compelling book, but where are the facts. Even the pictures are in question. For example, a picture of a tank blowing up a a house........but this type of tank was not even being made until much more recently. Even the well-known facts like the dates of the Edo period in Japan (1603-1867) are in error, 15th to 16th century according to this book. The population of Nanking at that time was about 200,000. But the reports that the Japanese killed over 300,000 people just don't fit with the facts. This book has so many errors a left-wing Japanese publishing company, one with great support for the investigation of atrocities at Nanking, refuses to release this book because it would actually draw negative feedback for their cause. Whether this happened to one person or 300,000, the horrors of war are clear from Chang's emotional and passionate description of events. But if you're looking to judge...then I suggest you get the facts. There are many books on Nanking written by many people who have taken the time to research this event from all sides. Don't be fooled by the propaganda in this book.
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