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89 of 103 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book with a contemptible introduction, February 26, 2000
In a disturbing and sometimes stomach-turning account of the series of massacres, mass rapes, mutilations, tortures and other atrocities the Imperial Japanese Army perpetrated from its landings at Hangzhou bay all the way along the bloody "road to Nanjing," Honda Katsuichi clearly establishes that the barbarous behavior of the troops who took the capital was no unique aberration, but rather business as usual writ tragically large. By juxtaposing excerpts from chauvinistic wartime Japanese press coverage and the official histories of Japanese army units with the recollections and diaries of survivors, witnesses, and participants, he also presents a sobering picture of the gulf between perception and reality that in many cases persists in Japan to this day. Mr. Honda presents much of his material with the clinical detachment of a police homicide report--complete with photographs and diagrams showing the various positions of perpetrators and victims as well as the lay of the land where the crimes were committed--thus largely avoiding the kind of partisan posturing that often plagues atrocity histories. There are occasional signs of the traditional pro-Chinese Communist biases of the Japanese left, but they inform rather than overwhelm the narrative. In spite of, or perhaps even because of, the slightly cold-blooded presentation, the violence, brutality, and downright evil described throughout somehow never lose the ability to shock. I found the tales of cruelty and human depravity to be so gut-wrenching that I had to stop reading the book after five in the evening for fear of the twisted and harrowing nightmares it was routinely inspiring. This is not a book for the faint of heart. One can only marvel at the courage that it must have taken for Mr. Honda, who was the first Japanese since the war to enter many of the small towns on the road to Nanjing, to not only confront the past and the hatreds and hostilities it inspired, but to record it in uncompromising detail. That his efforts have been largely met with hostility, indifference, and the "disgraceful anti-internationalist behavior of the Japanese government and the conservative forces," seems not to have discouraged him. He appears content to present the truth and to let it affect those of his countrymen who are prepared to deal with it. As laudable as Mr. Honda's achievements are, I cannot recommend this book without reservation. For as valuable as the work itself is, its publication in English represents the shameful complicity of some members of the Japanese left and their American associates in a mean-spirited right wing smear campaign designed to discredit Iris Chang and her work THE RAPE OF NANKING. That this was clearly the goal becomes evident when one reads editor Frank Gibney's gratuitous hatchet job of an introduction. The outrageous sophistries Mr. Gibney tries to pass off as scholarship are far too numerous to detail, but are perhaps best represented by his incredible claim that Ms. Chang "hopelessly exaggerates an 'atmosphere of intimidation' in Japan" a scant fourteen pages before we learn from Mr. Honda that after he published an account of the Nanjing Massacre in 1971, he was subsequently "targeted by Japan's extreme right-wing forces and received a number of threats which prompted me to move out of my home and keep my address and telephone number a secret, a policy that I have continued TO THIS DAY. BUNGEI SHUNJU and other magazines put out by conservative publishers have continued their attacks on me FOR MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS [emphasis added]." Nor was Mr. Gibney apparently aware of the blurb appearing on the back of the book, of which he is the ostensible editor, in which a man relates meeting Mr. Honda "wearing a wig and sunglasses in order to conceal his identity from right-wing politicians and activists." It is hard to see how such an atmosphere could be "hopelessly exaggerated," but here as elsewhere Mr. Gibney's partisan ardor seems remarkably unburdened by considerations of mere reality. Mr. Honda has produced an outstanding work that serves as a cautionary tale of the evil that men can do to one another, and that was once done by his country's army. He has taken a bold step by exposing that evil not only to his fellow Japanese, but now to the world. He sees himself as "an ardent Japanese patriot," and in the tradition of Ron Ridenhour, Seymour Hersh, Daniel Ellsberg, Neil Sheehan, and belatedly even Robert McNamara, I believe that his is the truest type of patriotism. He is a credit to his country and to mankind generally. His association with Mr. Gibney is unfortunate. Though I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this tragic chapter of world history, I strongly advise against giving the introduction any credence whatsoever.
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