Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Read
Review: I really enjoyed the book. However, I am dismayed by the fact that the same user/reviewer is allowed to post multiple reviews for a book on Amazon. In particular, the reviewer Kent seems to have nothing better to do than write negative reviews for this book. I found Kent's comment regarding an incident that happened at the Marco Polo Bridge (in China) ironic - "Even after the "Lokoukyou Incident", the Chinese Army continued to provoke the Japanese Army" - being that the Japanese Army was in China at the time. Hey Kent, sometimes the truth hurts.
Rating:
Summary: chilling and sobering
Review: The Rape of Nanking is a very chilling and sobering account of atrocities commited by Japanese soldiers upon civilians when they took the Chinese city of Nanking in WW2. The author uses first hand accounts of the soldiers themselves, the victims, and observors from other countries in her book. At the time it took place, the atrocities were front page news in the New York Times and other large newspapers, including newspapers in Japan. A major source is the diary of a German Nazi who saved thousands of Chinese lives.
There can be no doubt that something terrible happened in Nanking, China. Perhaps the numbers can be questioned, but the fact that attrocities happened cannot be questioned at all. Please read the book and judge for yourself, rather than go by the one star reviews here. And please be aware that you must have a strong stomach when reading it. :(
Rating: 
Summary: Oral History, Historiography and Propaganda
Review: When you study history, there are a few way to approach the truth. Gathering the historical facts, eyewitnesses' accounts, etc.. Then you put them together to reconstruct the history.
If you have a biased view or ideological assumption, like Iris Chang seems to have, however, things can go wrong and you never reach the truth. The following are some of the essential facts to understand the Sino-Japanese War that Ms. Chang did not mention. 1) There is a strong possibility that the Sino-Japanese War which started in the summer of 1937 was, in fact, waged by the Chinese Communist Party.
In fact, neither Japan nor the Chinese Nationalist Party didn't want the war. The Japanese Army was busy to guard the northern border of Manchuria from the Red Russia so didn't want to devide the force to the South. On the other hand, the CNP was almost succeeding to get rid of the CCP driving them into the tight corner of the North China.
In 1935, the Red Russia incited the CCP to fight the war against Japan at the 7th Comintern Conference. The following year the CNP leader Chiang Kai-Shek was kidnapped in Sian by the treacherous war lord, Chang Hsueh-liang, who was cooperating with the CCP, and was forced to agree to fight the war against Japan giving up to rule the whole country without the CCP. 2) According to a Chinese document which was published by Chinese People's University Press in 1987, the Chinese 29th Army, who engaged in the combat when the Marco Polo Bridge incident happened on 7th July 1937, had a plan for the war against Japan before the incident occurred and it had been authorised by the CCP. 3) One of most characteristic murders commited by the Chinese occurred in Tungchou, on 29th July 1937, at very moment the Japanese were seeking the cease-fire.
260 Japanese civilians including the elders and women and children were senselessly slaughtered. Most of them were mutilated. Eyes were scooped out. Some were disemboweled.
Women were all raped and their genitals were pinned with sticks like you can see in a photograph in this Chang's book. 4) You have to be careful about the self-admitted perpetrators of former Japanese Army. They may be ones of the soldiers who were "brain washed" in Fuxuan war criminal camp after transfered from Siberian slave labour camp from 1951 until late 50s.
Apart from it, there are some Communist Party propagandists like Azuma Shiro or "professional" lier like Sone Kazuo who is profiting from the "Nanking Massacre industry". 5) Zeng Xubai, then the chief of the international propaganda department of the CNP at the time of the war, wrote in his autobiography (published in Taipei, 1988) that the CNP hired H.J.Timperley and L.S.C.Smythe to write books for the anti-Japanese propaganda purpose.
As you know, Timperley (the Manchester Guardian) is the author of the book "What War Means" that shocked the world by "revealing" Japanese war atrocities, and, Dr. Smythe is the author of "War Damage in the Nanking Area". Both books have definitely been considered as hard evidences of the Nanking Massacre.
Furthermore, the Nanking University professor M.S. bates was a advisor for the CNP and was conferred a decoration by them just after "What War Means" published. It was Bates who was providing all those Japanese excess related informations to Journalists like Timperley, Durdin (NY Times) and Steele (Chicago Daily News). 6) There was a special corpse in the Chinese Army that shoot their own soldiers who try to run away. In Nanking, they were operating at the Yijiang Gate near Hsiakwan. And before the Japanese Army reached Nanking, many wounded soldiers from battle in Shanghai were transported by railway to Nanking and abandoned at the station to die. 7) At the Tokyo Trial, perjury was never applied to the prosecutors' evidences. So, whatever the Chinese witnesses told the court about the alleged massacre was uncritically accepted while most of the defendants' evidences were plainly dismissed.
It means, the verdicts of the Tokyo Trial were never substantiated.
Nevertheless, virtually all historians in the western world seem to believe blindly that the Tokyo Trial validated all claims against Japan. 8) Most important yet ignored fact of all is the existence of the illegal combatants and plain clothes snipers that violate International Laws of War in the Chinese Army. In Nanking, where they hid in the Safety Zone, sometimes they even donned the Japanese Army uniform and committed atrocities against the refugees then put the blame on the Japanese Army. If you rely on "historiography" so much you neglect the facts that are not seen or hidden, you may not reach anywhere near the truth.
As for this so-called Rape of Nanking, it is no use to speculate the psyche of the soldiers who alegedly committed this "barbaric crime" until when it is all clear whether the "massacre" really happened or not.
Rating:
Summary: Fighting the Good Fight
Review: For those of you out there who are not overtly racist Japanese I ask you to ignore the rantings of these idiots who have the intelligence of a "piman" ( you have to speak a little Japanese to understand this term ). Read past their nonsensical words to other reviews, not necessarily my own. " The Rape of Nanking " is a great book and worthy of the accolades of all the great people who have loaned their opinions to the publication of this book and the reviews of leading newspapers of the world that also reviewed it. Give the Japanese people time. They are smart and will eventually see the error and evils of their past ways. All nations have skeltons in their closets. The difference is most other nations have owned up to their guilt- even South Africa- but the Japanese show no sign of changing- yet. They will eventually. Read "The Rape of Nanking". You owe it to the victims and ultimately it will uplift you when you realize the human spirit is undefeatable no matter the amount of horror and power it is confronted with. Yukizi, Hiromi, and Co., I`ll be in your face forever. Truth and justice are on my side. Truth Speaker.
Rating:
Summary: GHQ still alive
Review: The interesting thing with Truth Sayer's review is the blamings made here are quite similar to GHQ's propaganda when Japan had been under its despotism.
I think seeing the GHQ propaganada and censoring is a good start for Japaneses and Americans to release ourselves from the fallacy. "Nanking Massacre" had been a part of GHQ's propaganda program.
I recommend Hosaka Masayasu's "Nihon Kaitai" (Breaking up Japan) to know about the GHQ propaganda and Etou Jun's "Tozasareta Gengo Kuukan" (Closed Language Space) for pursuing the censorship. Kai Yuzuru's "GHQ Censor" is a must read for all Japaneses, which is a first hand testimony written by the former censor who had been working in GHQ.
Rating:
Summary: Stop the Chinese Communists' Propaganda!
Review: China is invading Japan. China has been sending ships into Japanese territory Senkaku Islands in order to accumulate faits accomplis and, in the future, declare Senkaku Islands are Chinese territory. Next target would be Okinawa. As you know, China is expanding its territory e.g. Tibet and Uigur. Most of Asia will be occupied by China if we ignore Chinese aggressive policy.
Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking" is a propaganda purposing to make Japanese subordinate to China. It is most deplorable so many Japaneses and Americans are deceived by Chinese Communists' fabrications while many intelligent Chineses know their government never tell the truth.
Rating:
Summary: I will not cease from mental fight nor shall my sword sleep
Review: Victor von Chen is one of the victims of Chinese propaganda. Their folklore should have been a tapestry of falsefoods deposited in 4000 years.
731 unit was never accused even on Tokyo Trial which was a revenge by winners. Peace never comes as long as Chinese continue their propaganda.
Rating:
Summary: Championing Humanity
Review: Usually I would not engage in any kind of debate with complete fools and bigots. But because I feel so strongly that we in the present must honor the victims of the past, and speak out for them, I will continue to retort Yukizi and the other shamelessly close-minded Japanese who are posting nonsense on this site regarding the Rape of Nanking. You continue to dishonor your people Yukizi and Hiromi. What kind of human beings are you two ?? I am American. I will gladly point out the truth that in the late 19th century the U.S. Army enaged in a form of genocide against Native Americans ( Indians, Yukizi ). In World War II the U.S. heavily bombed civilian urban targets in Europe and Japan. Atomic bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that may not have needed to be dropped- though strong arguments have been made for 59 years that these bombs saved as many as 10 million U.S. and Japanese casualities had the U.S. had to conquer Japan by invasion. During the Vietnam War as many as 2 million South East Asian perished, most of whom were civilians. These are facts. Here are some more facts- In China alone historians from several nations have determined as a direct result of the Japanese INVASION 19 million Chinese people died. As many as 4-6 million Asians died in: Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Philipines, Vietnam, Burma, Indonesia, Cambodia, Manchuria, Taiwan. Allied prisoners were routinely tortured and killed. All by Japanese troops. Detailed eyewitness` accounts, including photos and film, from many different countries including clergy saw this disgusting crime against humanity as it unfolded over several weeks. Newspaper articles from leading- and still operating Japanese newspapers reported these killings like they were covering the latest baseball results. Several of the Westerners there risked their lives to set up the Safety Zone to keep Japanese rapists and murderers away from the survivors. As a result,instead of the entire pre-Rape population of Nanking dying in the most horrible ways imagineable ( like most villages between Shanghai and Nankai during the Japanese Army`s march to Nanking ), nearly half the population, 300,000 people survived. Japan has paid 1/65th the war reparations as Germany for it`s criminal acts during WWII. What does that say ? Hiromi, now I turn my attention to you. You said this was in the middle of a war ?? This was an invasion by Japan on another country. Besides, is it proper for troops to kill anyone they want, stomp babies into pulp in front of their mothers, force families to have sexual intercourse with each other for entertainment, then rape the women for days and proceed to kill the whole family anyway ? This is just a small taste of the acts these animals committed. Face the truth and the rest of the world will respect you. Until then, your people are never going to be respected by the world community.... Enough said. Read this book. It is what we owe the victims. Yukizi, my invitation is still open.
Rating:
Summary: Typical Anti-Japan Japanese
Review: Now we have seen how the Communism can make people vulgar by reading "Truth Speaker"'s review. This persun could not make any refutation but only string together all sorts of flowery words.
I recommed all of you to search "Tongzhou Incident" by any search engine then you will know the Chinese manner of massacre and understand Chang's description is just tracing their own history.
Rating: 
Summary: The Truth
Review: The truth is the Rape of Nanking did happen. It's been recorded by THOUSANDS of Japanese soldiers who were apart of it, humanitarian workers, and foreigners who were in China at the time. Those that deny it happened are either in complete denial or are filled with misinformation about the subject. There are more than enough first-hand accounts of the incident if they are willing to do research. I would recommend this book to anyone that is unfamiliar with the Rape of Nanking.
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