The Rape of Nanking

Rating:
Summary: Compelling account of a Culture of Murder
Review: In a day and age when Japan's Prime Minister still annually makes pilgrimages to "honor" Japan's "war heros", books like this provide some insight into the cultural underpinnings of racism and utter brutality.

Japan's forced enslavement, torture, and rape of Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese, and others in WW2 has been well-documented; and yet, curiously, it takes explosive books like this to bring this documentation out of stale academia and into modern light.

Even today, those who were borne and live in Japan from those Koreans forcibly kidnapped and raped by Japanese are not Japanese citizens... despite the fact that they are now 3rd generation Japanese, speak no Korean, and have never been to Korea. As this book amply demonstrates, Japan breeds into its people a robotic disregard for human life and suffering, and a racism that, to this day, is remarkably disturbing. In the US, we tend to focus on occidental sins... it's time we also cast our eyes eastward.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Overview of Neglected Topic
Review: Had this book merely called the attention of Western readers to this neglected and heartbreaking topic, it would have been a very important work.

But this book is also very concise, superbly structured, and well-written (if, on rare occasions, a tad overwrought).

It is not the last word on the subject, but it is a very good introduction to it.

Rating:
Summary: Cannibal is Chinese culture.
Review: I contribute for the first time.
Various informations about Nanking Massacre are flowing, to tell the truth, I also can't understand which one is the true information.
But, I want to say only one point.
They say, Japanese soldiers ate Chinese's internal organs with pan. It's nonsense story.
Japanese began eating pig or beef about 140 years ago. All samurais were vegetarians.
I swear we don't have that kind of culture. Cannibal is Chinese culture. You can easily understand if you read Chinese history book. Obviously, it's a propaganda made by Chinese.
Though there are Japanese slaughter events committed by Chinese, too. If those are not seen, it is not impartial.
(...)

Rating:
Summary: What an amazing young scholar!
Review: The Nanjing Massacre has been witnessed by hundreds of thousands despite the clear attempt by Japanese soldiers to kill all those in view. It's sick that the Japanese are not taught the truth regarding the past. Clearly, young Japanese today are not at fault at what happened back in World War II, but we should all recognize our past mistakes. As Chang shrewdly highlights, Germany is a better country today because they recognized their dark past and the South are better today because they now recognize that slavery is unethical and simply disgusting. Shame on those who refuse to admit that the Nanjing Massacre occurred. I wonder if they even read Chang's book, not to mention the now many documentaries and texts regarding this subject matter.

Rating:
Summary: Religion is the Root Cause of the Massacres
Review: A Japanese reviewer had justified the Nanking massacre by referring the Chinese massacre of the Tibetans. A strange way of justifying indeed. Thus the Jewish treatment of the Palestinians also justify their prior (worse!) treatment by the Nazis? At any rate, while I abhor the massacre of the Tibetans which occurred during the cultural revolution, the Red Guards massacred many people of different ethnicity, including a large majority of Chinese themselves. It wasn't as racially motivated as the Nanking massacre.

A good point to note that most Japanese who denied the truth of the Nanking massacre are Shinto believers. Most Buddhist Japanese are able to come to terms with this horrendous deed of their forefathers, and have participated prominently annually in commemorative events.

Shinto believers have this problem because the root lies in the fact that the religion preaches the infallibility of the Japanese race and particularly of the imperial family. A believer would certainly be unable to accept that their own people could commit such atrocious crime, and would strenuously, furiously deny it.

Indeed it is this very belief in their infallability that led them progressively into aggressive behaviour towards their neighbours, whom they view as racially impure and inferior. In this aspect this is very similar to Nazism, only more muted, and sadly, more enduring.

Incidentally, Nanking was by no means the only massacre though it was the largest by the Japanese. In Singapore and Malaysia, tens of thousands of Chinese men were murdered during the nearly 4 years of Japanese occupation. These men were rounded up and brought in trucks to remote locations, forced to dig trenches and then gunned down by the Japanese soldiers, who then buried them in these very trenches. Numerous such places have been recovered. My parents personally know of people whom have been rounded-up and disappeared, and also of survivors who made it to tell the truth. My university room-mate's family still do not buy Japanese goods because his maternal grandmother lost all her sons this way. But the British did not pursue the Japanese for compensation they way they did with the Germans since we're just colonies, and the succeeding governments needed Japanese investments so did not see fit to offend. It is now dim memory for most of the young people, but it does not mean that the massacres did not occur.



Rating:
Summary: Tragic
Review: I had only heard about Japanese atrocities in China during WWII in general, yet had never read a detailed account (unlike the massive amounts of material you are exposed to in school about the Holocaust). The Rape of Nanking taught me much about the politics, motivations, and tragedies associated with Japan's occupation of parts of mainland China in the late 30's. While the book is fast paced, informative, and well written, do prepare yourself to be exposed to descriptions of the most horrific acts that your imagination can muster. I felt the book could have been edited down a bit as certain sections get repetitive, but this is my only complaint about an otherwise amazing book on a little covered chapter in history. One that everyone should read. Not learning about The Rape is like being clueless about the Holocaust, and it's truly a tragedy that this event has been lost on most of the western world. It's fantastic that Iris Chang has brought it to light, yet tragic that she took her own life last year. Bottom line, if you can stomach some of the most gut wrenching horrors of The Rape being described in brutal detail (and some being pictured), then you owe it to yourself to read this book.

Rating:
Summary: 20th century Asian history
Review: This was truly eye-opening b/c of the lack of awareness that this event ever occured. That is the point and the double-tragedy of what happened. Much like the Nazi atrocities of WW2, it is hard to believe that man could act in such a way to others. The book is informative yet somewhat repetitive. A couple of times I swear I was reading word for word what I had already read. Otherwise, it was very interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Historical value?
Review: Chang spends a great deal of time convincing the reader that this was a "horrible atrocity on the level of the holocost"... it had nothing to do with the holocost on practically every level. What's more, Japan has not "forgotten" anything. National educational guidelines are written specifically "to teach children what a horrible thing war is, and that it only goes to harm humanity and the world"... a fine lesson, if there was no war or hatred in the world. Many of the photographs in this book are 1: of questionable origin, 2: mislabled, or 3: proven fakes. The few that remain do not denote location or events. The overwhelming number of "eye-whitness acounts" in this book seem to be presented as having more value than any documentation from the time(little of which is presented), and for a book which upholds the Tokyo Tribunal (called a farce far and wide, in the US and elsewhere) she brushed off the evidence presented (some of which rejected by the tribunal) by the defence... This book may be a good emotional read, but it has little value as a work of historical research.