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The Rape of Nanking

The Rape of Nanking

List Price: $44.95
Your Price: $44.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Wake up!
Review: I cannot imagine why so many people believe this kind of bulls--t.
We should always remember that a huge number of Chinese killed by Chienese Communist Party.They have to make a story up for diverting people's complaint.Japan is always the best target for them.They don't take objections much.Some Japanese even gradly accept it and throw themselves at a Chinese feet.This kind of hypocrites maybe regard themselves as better person by doing that.
Iris Chang is a big liar but I don't brame her.She is working very hard for her country.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Why stirring lowly emotion by a vile illusion?
Review: Ms. Chang's book consists of the 4th and the 5th class source documents only and there is NONE of proofs of the incidents displayed in this book. It is quite amazing some "professional readers" can give this high marks. Nanking was not a forgotten holocaust but a rejected illusion among several Western reporters (including Mr. Rabe). Who rejected it? The contemporary Chinese authority did for a decade following the incident and that is all what the history tells on the 1st class source documents (in English as well).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent book on an otherwise hidden topic.
Review: This book by Ms. Chang is an excellent recounting of the atrocities which occurred in WW2 China.

As for those vicious comments here refuting the book, I don't know what to say. What would one say to someone who was to deny the European Holocaust? In the face of irrefutable evidence, not even just this book, but the available documents regarding this incident, how can these events be denied? Why is this historical event denied with such a vitriolic hysteria? If it were not true, could it not be disproved objectively, and not with the "lies lies lies" that are listed here? It can't, the books which "refute" Nanking are pure fabrications themeselves; the very paradigm of modern Japanese selective amnesia. The fact that the Japanese to this day whitewash their shameful actions during WW2 only adds humiliation to those who suffered through this nightmarish event.

And Nanking was not the only place which was "raped" in China during this time. Let us pretend Nanking did not even occur. What of it? It was NOT the only city in China, nay, in all of Asia which was "raped" by Japan. Even if this book, which it IS NOT, was pure fabrication, it still does not excuse the actions of Japan on its neighbors. The argument that Japan was doing its Asian neighbors a favor, or was asked in by them to get rid of the Western occupying colonsits is exceedingly silly. There has not been a nation on the face of this planet in all of history which has willingly asked an enemy nation to occupy their territory.

To those who would berate this book, or this tragedy, based on completely unrelated contemporary Chinese actions, such as Tibet, then shame on you. A tragedy is a tragedy; if you think that Nanking is somehow justified for any other reason, I ask you how you can look at yourselves without disgust.

Ms. Chang has written a very objective book on the subject matter. Chang is not a historian, she is a journalist, and as such, does NOT write her book like a history book, as some people seem to expect. Also, her book is balanced, and she is VERY careful not to blame all the Japanese people for the horrible event; and she is correct in doing this. The fact that some Japanese would get mad at this book only shows how they have been brainwashed into the view that their country was a victim; it was not. It is objective, and picking at any MINOR faults it may have is truly pathetic. As said earlier, a rape in August is still a rape in September. Mutilated, raped, pregnant women in "site A" is still a tragedy in "site B."

A question was raised, "how long must the Japanese people be sorry for this event?" Well, read this book, and look at the whitewashing the Japanese have done on their wartime crimes, look at the ignorance of the world to this topic, and I think you can confidently say that there has been not one once of regret concerning this event.

I applaud Ms. Chang for having the courage to write about such a previously unknown event, an event which has gotten many killed in Japan for asking too many questions about...For those who suggest you read revisionist books by ultra-nationalistic Japanese, I say that would be as objective as reading "Mein Kampf" for information on WW2. You decide...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Horrible atrocity by the Japanese!
Review: Japanses should be put on war trials!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A concise & informative look into an unspeakable war crime.
Review: When I graduated from high school fifteen years ago, John Hershey's, Hiroshima and The Diary of Anne Frank were required reading. I believe that Iris Chang's, The Rape of Nanking should certainly be added to that list. The reading of the horrors inflicted upon the Chinese citzens of Nanking and the areas surrounding the city from December 1937 to the spring of 1938, disturbed and moved me in a way that few books have ever done. The magnitude and intensity of the slaughter is simply mind-numbing and the injustice of the world's continuing apathy is truly maddening.
This said, I must admit that I generally find national apologies to be meaningless, especially when all the perpetrators and victims of an atrocity are deceased. The only meaningful apology can come from an admitted perpetrator to a known victim. Since the vast majority of the Japanese people living today did not participate in the event and likewise most Chinese were not victims either, I feel that such an apology would in general, be equally meaningless. However, a public acknowledgement of this particular event as well as responsibility for starting an unjust war would go a long way to removing the historical stain that the nation of Japan continues to bare.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Already happened
Review: As far as I know, there are three English books telling that the materials which Iris Chang is based on are not the facts.

"The Alleged Nanking Massacre : Japan's rebuttal to China's forged claims" by Tadao Takemoto.

"Nanking : Anatomy of an Atrocity" by Masahiro Yamamoto

"What Really Happened in Nanking" by Tanaka Masaaki

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Horrifying tale well told
Review: In the West we learn far more about the second word war in Europe and the Holocaust than we do about the war in the Far East, and "The Rape of Nanking" usually evokes only a vague recollection of events. This focus of the West means readers have little access to historical accounts of certain aspects of the war available in English. Iris Chang attempts to set the record straight with the first English-language account of the massacre perpetrated by Japanese forces on the Chinese population of Nanking. The book recounts in horrifying detail how Japanese troops slaughtered civilians and prisoners of war, using the most barbaric methods imaginable. As many as 350,000 people were killed, part of a total of 20 million Chinese that died during the whole war. Tens of thousands of women and girls were raped, or abducted to serve as "comfort women" to the Japanese troops. A "race" between two Japanese army officers to decapitate the most Chinese was published in the Japanese press, with daily updates of changes in their respective tallies. The story has its heroes too - the foreign inhabitants of Nanking, who shielded as many Chinese as possible in the International Safety Zone.

This is a great work of journalism, written with the passion and abhorrence the topic demands. This is its fault, too, as the graphic nature of the events sometimes threatens to overwhelm the reader - even to the point of nausea. The style of writing, plus the fact that this is not a scholarly work, may leave some readers wanting a more sober account with more rigorous references, but Ms. Chang's use of her sources creates a convincing and trustworthy account, despite the criticisms leveled at her work by mostly Japanese commentators.

The direct reason for the massacre is not clear, although the Japanese cultural superiority complex of the time was surely a prime mover. The fact that stories such as the decapitation race were published in Japan as news with some entertainment value, and that the officers' grisly exploits were described in glowing and heroic terms, points to a nation-wide sharing of the values that led to the massacre. It should be of concern that Japan remains a xenophobic nation, where immigrants are considered as somehow beneath Japanese, and routinely refused service and access to places such as bath houses. Worrying too, is the denial of the massacre from certain segments of Japanese society, and official connivance to keep the matter under wraps by not allowing the truth to be taught in Japanese schools.

Any work of history can be prove as false by anyone that uses better or more reliable sources - that is how the system works. No serious refutation of any of the facts presented by Ms Chang has been shown, and until that happens, this will remain the most authoritative work available to a general audience. Some critics deplore the book based on the putative enmity it sows between China and Japan - should this be so, it is unfortunate, but to bury the truth would be a greater crime still. I for one trust that the Japanese and Chinese people are reasonable enough to appreciate this fact.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Why an American professor took the census?
Review: Refer Lewis C.S. Smythe's "War damage in the Nanking area, December 1937 to March 1938 : Urban and Rural Surveys, on behalf of the Nanking International Relief Committee" (Shanghai : Mercury Press, 1938).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Why would an American professor take a census?
Review: Now if the numbers were true, 270,000 indicates 1 million people were 'missing' from their residences. I've toured Nanjing and other Chinese cities in recent years, and it has always been one of the most populous cities in China, with a population over a million for the past century (presently it's over 5 million). The 200,000-300,000 numbers being floated around by you and your compatriots ostensibly as pre-occupation numbers is some of the most uproarious poppycock I've seen in a long, long time. Keep up the good work. The only people you're convincing is yourself.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Who was taking the census?
Review: Lewis Smythe, a professor of Nanking University, and his students. The result was 250,000-270,000. Lewis Smythe is an American. Probably most of his students were Chinese.


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