Rating: 
Summary: the great book i ever seen before!!!
Review: this is the first book i had read completely in my 17year's life.i love this book so much.Iris Chang ,u are great!!!! this book showed me how cruel are the ancient Japanese,also,teach me what is "CRAZY" and TERRIBLE........u must read this book....
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book that opens up a disturbing history
Review: Iris Chang's THE RAPE OF NANKING is a work that cannot be ignored. I am only a ninth grader, but I was horrified at the history of the Nanking Massacre. It is truly a "forgotten holocaust", the people murdered and tortured there deserving a one-sentence mention in my history book. Those who claim that the pictures are "doctored up" offer little or no evidence for that statement, and, in turn, are denying the event themselves. Others who complain that Chang is biased seem to think that anyone who studies such a horrifying history CANNOT be biased- it is so terrible, one has to hold an opinion of sorts. Other reviewers who wished that Chang compare the massacre there to the one committed by the Chinese in Tibet missed the point. This book is not about the atrocities the Chinese committed (which are many, not just on Tibetans but on their own people) but a completely different event... While the brutalities on the Tibetans are widely-known and well-publicised, the Nanking Massacre is not common knowledge. This book, though, is helping to make it one.
Rating:
Summary: why didnt i hear about this in school or elsewhere ?
Review: this book horrified me.just when you think you cant hear anything more depraved about genocidal inhumanity, it gets worse! i am 27 yrs old and i never heard anything about this in high school. i feel as though iris chang is deeply saddened at japans refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing,but she shouldnt hold her breath. where are the apologies for cambodia, bosnia and others? the scale of the brutal rape-mutilations,though,is unheard of.being an american woman,i am outraged at the soldier who she quotes as saying,"when we were raping them,we thought of them as women.but when we killed then,we thought nothing more of them than as pigs to butcher."they are apparently proud of their heinous deeds and yet paradoxically they deny that the whole thing ever happened.sad.
Rating: 
Summary: Poor history, but a good account.
Review: Touted as "the first book in English about the Nanking massacre", it is not; Dick Wilson includes a detailed account in his account of the Sino-Japanese war "When Tigers Fight". The author, being of Chinese heritage, begins her account with a statement to the effect that everyone in her family new about the massacre, though none experienced it personally. This sets the tone for the type of historiography which follows. While she does do an excellent job of relating accounts of survivors and other details of a tragedy about which there is not enough awareness in the west, such an important story deserved firmer foundations. I am not, by any means, questioning what took place, but (for example) she relies on a single contemporary newspaper account to back up a statement that because of the Japanese the population of a certain Chinese city was reduced from many thousands to just ten people; query as to whether that would be an adequate source for a term paper, let alone a book which purports to be ground-breaking. And granted, the Japanese did some terrible things in China and elsewhere, but the book seems full of negative generalizations about the Japanese which many would probably find objectionable if directed at other ethnic groups.
Rating: 
Summary: worthwhile reading
Review: rape of nanking was an excellent book, the first book i have read in a long time that i simply could not put down...however, chang's style was sort of lacking. it bothered me the way she continually compared the rape to the jewish holocaust and other atrocities of humanity.. i know that this is an inevitability, to compare such tragedies, but i felt as though she portrayed the comparison in an almost bitter way. don't get me wrong..she has all right to be bitter, but in a historic retelling, especially of a story as haunting as the rape of nanking, no such remarks are needed
Rating:
Summary: Tells a true story that the world should know about.
Review: Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking" is a story that the world should know. We've all heard of the Nazi holocaust against the Jews but few have heard the horrors inflicted on 300,000 Chinese in Nanking when Japanese soldiers ran rampant. More Chinese were killed in the three weeks of this massacre than Japanese in the two atom bomb blasts. This is an important story, well researched and skillfully told. To understand China, and its looming role in world politics in the next millenium, this book stands out as a must read. I've told everyone of my book friends about this book and hope they do the same.
Rating:
Summary: This is a book that should be read by everyone!!
Review: I was appalled to learn about the atrocities done to the Chinese. This book was very well written. It held my attention the whole way through. It showed me facts that should have been brought to our attention long ago. I have a much greater understanding of the Chinese and a much greater respect for them because of it. It should be included in every history class. World War II was not just about the Germans and this book shows all sides to the story. It shows why the Japenese did what they did. It shows how the Chinese have coped and how the world has ignored this. All in all one of the best nonfiction books I have ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Yupper, I read it too.
Review: I first heard of this atrocious event back in the sixties listening to Walter Cronkite narrate one of his many shows on WW2. He mentioned it in a matter-of-fact style while explaining the Japanese Army's excurison into China. And the only photo of it which I can remember is one of a young baby sitting between railroad tracks crying while a city (Nanjing? Shanghai? Tijuana?) is burning in the background.I'm not going to challenge or disagree on whether she has her facts absolutely correct or if the pictures were doctored (as someone asserted), but we can agree that a rape or a beheading in Shanghai is not too different than in Nanjing, eh? Apart from Chang's style of writing, I found the book interesting and done well. Is there anything wrong with subjective writing or narrating? This book doesn't measure up to the dry text of school books, but for general reading and knowledge it does an excellent job.
Rating:
Summary: awful massacre, unimaginable
Review: The author , Iris Chang, gave me what I had not been taught in my junior high school and high school days. I had read an article in a newspaper, saying that right-wing nationalists are giving obstructions to the publisher, who has a plan to publish translation of this book. Iris Chang showed what we, Japanese people, should do for victims in World War II and who have deceived us having no experience of war. Impressive book and unforgettable.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book, opens your eyes to atrocities you only heard
Review: This book weaves the historical context of what was happening with the specific atrocities in an excellent way. Iris Chang allows you to feel the individual suffering, while understanding the bigger picture. The current atrocity, or failure of the Japanese government to recognize the mistakes of the past is also evident It helps one understand why there are still hard feelings against Japan, even fifty years after the war.
|
