The Nanking Atrocity, 1937-38 (Asia-Pacific Studies) [Paperback]

B T Wakabayashi (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1845455002 | ISBN-13: 978-1845455002 | Publication Date: December 5, 2007

December 13, 2007 marks the 70th anniversary of the fall of the Chinese city of Nanking to the Japanese army. The "Nanking Atrocity" of winter 1937-8, also known as the "Nanking Massacre," lies at the core of bitter disputes over history, wartime victimization, and postwar restitution that preclude amicable Sino-Japanese relations to this day. This volume, which is both history and historiography, offers the most recent scholarship about what actually happened in Nanking and places those findings in the context of how Chinese and Japanese writers have attributed mutually incompatible meanings to the event ever since; an event that is coined, on the Chinese side, as "the forgotten Holocaust," after the subtitle of Iris' Chang's 1997 bestseller, The Rape of Nanking, uncritically adopted by Western public opinion, a gross distortion according to the contributors of this volume. However, the authors also deflate Japanese exculpatory narratives which, serving their own ideological agendas, holds that Nanking was a combat operation against unlawful belligerents, which produced only a few dozen innocent victims. This volume presents new facts and fresh interpretations with the overriding aim to "complicate the picture" and to debunk myths, expose fallacies, and rectify misconceptions that obstruct a clear understanding of the issues and prevent ultimate reconciliation between China and Japan. Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi is Professor of History at York University, Toronto, specializing in Japanese political thought and World War Two in East Asia. His publications include Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan (Harvard University Press, 1986), Japanese Loyalism Reconstrued (University of Hawaii Press, 1995), and Modern Japanese Thought (Ed.,Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi is Professor of History at York University, Toronto, specializing in Japanese political thought and World War Two in East Asia. His publications include Anti-Foreignism and Western Learning in Early-Modern Japan (Harvard University Press, 1986), Japanese Loyalism Reconstrued (University of Hawaii Press, 1995), and Modern Japanese Thought (Ed.,Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Berghahn Books (December 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845455002
• ISBN-13: 978-1845455002
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,309 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #90 in Books > History > Asia > Japan

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond the Hype, July 26, 2008

By 

Donald G. Wileman "Troublemaker" (Toronto, Ontario, in the Dominion of Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Nanking Atrocity, 1937-38 (Asia-Pacific Studies) (Paperback)

If you've just started trying to make sense of the Nanking atrocity, or if you've been at it a while and are tired of people calling each other genocidal liars, then this is the book you want. Calm (well, *fairly* calm), reasonable, knowledgeable people, with different opinions, did lots of research, put their heads together, and came up with the best estimates of what happened that the evidence will allow. They did not erase. They did not inflate. Some of the authors are actually witty (be careful not to giggle while reading a book about atrocities on the bus; people will look at you strangely). All the authors write clearly. This book's conclusions (such as a casualty range of 40,000 to a bit under 200,000), aren't likely to be disproved unless very unexpected new evidence turns up, so late.

I felt at times that the authors repeated themselves too much, and drove each point home, step-by-step --as if it were a stake through Dracula's heart. Give them a break; there are far too many Undead arguments walking around on this topic: disproved years ago, but still re-published because people with money or power publish what they want to believe --and what they want *you* to believe.

People fight about this subject in North America and Europe. In China and Japan it's Incandescent! Berghahn books took a big chance publishing this many voices. They published in paperback, in language and in styles almost anyone could understand. You won't find this book on Indigo Chapters' site, for all that they offer 41 "hits" on the subject (many of them repeats, mostly with words like "Super Holocaust" in their titles). I'd like to see this book succeed.

--Donald G. Wileman teaches Modern European History at York University [Toronto]

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Possibly the Finest Book on the Subjesct, July 18, 2010

By 

Stop Uyoku - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Nanking Atrocity, 1937-38 (Asia-Pacific Studies) (Paperback)

Top notch essays and readability make this novel the BEST available in the English language, hands down. Not only is the book meticulously researched and cited, it is composed of essays by the finest minds on the subject that the world currently has to offer. If you want to read a historically accurate and politically benign book on the subject, one that covers all the bases, then this is it. This should be required reading for any and all world or Asian history students, or for any US history class dedicated to the war in the Pacific.