The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II [Paperback]

Iris Chang (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 1, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0140277447 | ISBN-13: 978-0140277449

In December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered—a death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Using extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, Iris Chang has written what will surely be the definitive history of this horrifying episode. The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved almost 300,000 Chinese. Among these was the Nazi John Rabe, an unlikely hero whom Chang calls the "Oskar Schindler of China" and who worked tirelessly to protect the innocent and publicize the horror. More than just narrating the details of an orgy of violence, The Rape of Nanking analyzes the militaristic culture that fostered in the Japanese soldiers a total disregard for human life. Finally, it tells the appalling story: about how the advent of the Cold War led to a concerted effort on the part of the West and even the Chinese to stifle open discussion of this atrocity. Indeed, Chang characterizes this conspiracy of silence, that persists to this day, as "a second rape."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

China has endured much hardship in its history, as Iris Chang shows in her ably researched The Rape of Nanking, a book that recounts the horrible events in that eastern Chinese city under Japanese occupation in the late 1930s. Nanking, she writes, served as a kind of laboratory in which Japanese soldiers were taught to slaughter unarmed, unresisting civilians, as they would later do throughout Asia. Likening their victims to insects and animals, the Japanese commanders orchestrated a campaign in which several hundred thousand--no one is sure just how many--Chinese soldiers and noncombatants alike were killed. Chang turns up an unlikely hero in German businessman John Rabe, a devoted member of the Nazi party who importuned Adolf Hitler to intervene and stop the slaughter, and who personally saved the lives of countless residents of Nanking. She also suggests that the Japanese government pay reparations and apologize for its army's horrific acts of 60 years ago. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA?The events in this book are horribly off-putting, which, paradoxically, is why they must be remembered. Chang tells of the Sino-Japanese War atrocities perpetrated by the invading Japanese army in Nanking in December 1937, in which roughly 350,000 soldiers and civilians were slaughtered in an eight-week period, many of them having been raped and/or tortured first. Not only are readers given many of the gory details?with pictures?but they are also told of the heroism of some members of a small foreign contingent, particularly of a Nazi businessman who resided in China for 30 years. The story of his bravery lends the ironic touch of someone with evil credentials doing good. Once the author finishes with the atrocities, she proceeds with the equally absorbing and much easier-to-take story of what happened to the Nazi businessman when he returned to Germany and the war ended. This by itself is material for a movie. The author tells why the Japanese government not only allowed the atrocities to occur but also refused, and continues to refuse, to acknowledge that they happened. She is quite evenhanded in reminding readers that every culture has some episode like this in its history; what makes this one important is the number of people killed and tortured, the sadism, and the ongoing Japanese denial of responsibility. Mature readers will look beyond the sensational acts of cruelty to ponder the horror of man's inhumanity to man and the examples of heroism in the midst of savagery.?Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140277447
• ISBN-13: 978-0140277449
• Product Dimensions: 0.7 x 5.2 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (707 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #283,186 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Iris Chang lived and worked in California. She was a journalism graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana and worked briefly as a reporter in Chicago before winning a graduate fellowship to the writing seminars program at The Johns Hopkins University. Her first book, Thread of the Silkworm (the story of Tsien Hsue-shen, father of the People's Republic of China's missile program) received world-wide critical acclaim. She is the recipient of the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation's Program on Peace and International Cooperation award, as well as major grants from the National Science Foundation, the Pacific Cultural Foundation, and the Harry Truman Library. She passed away in 2004.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

899 of 960 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Please do not forget this tragedy August 19, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I read through the book and I think it is a very nicely written one. One minor point is that it would be nicer to note in the text the references documents in the style of academic articles. That would be easier for readers who are interested in digging into the original documents themselves. Nonetheless, I think that this book gave a very clear view of one of the saddest event ever happened in human history in a way that can be understood by general public.

I strongly disagreed with one of the reader's review for criticizing this book as "ridiculous". The reasons for my disagreement are as followed:
1. Criticizing Point:
"Iris Chang is a fourth-Generation Chinese American. She does not speak or understand any of the languages needed to examine this issue (Chinese, Japanese and German). I have concluded that all information used in this book is second-hand information, most of them is propaganda."

Disagreement:
First of all, there are a lot of first hand references written in English, as were listed in the book. In fact, one of the reasons that Nanking Massacre was known to the world was because quite a few Europeans and Americans happened to witness and documented the event. If the reviewer considered none of those documents are first-hand documents, I am not sure what the definition of "first-hand" information is. In addition, some of the documents are even reported by Japanese themselves. It is not reasonable to report something against their own country if it is not truth, especially during the war time.

Second, according to what the author stated in the book, the author is a second generation Chinese American (not a very important point here, but it implies the reviewer may not read the book clearly before jumping into conclusion). In her book she thanks her parents and many other people for helping her translating needed documents from different languages. Many of these helpers are scholars with knowledge of multi-languages. Take her parent as an example, they were born in Mainland China, grew up in Taiwan and received their Ph.D.s from Harvard University in American. Is it reasonable to believe that they have enough knowledge in both Chinese and English to translating some of those documents for her?

2. Criticizing Point:
The reviewer stated: "My great uncle was in the Japanese Army. He told me several times not to believe in this kind of nonsense. It is impossible to kill so many people in such a short period. Especially with soldiers who were not equipped with machine guns or other weapons for mass-destruction. Just take a minute and think. According to my uncle, it took almost 3 days to burn 6 corpses of his comrades after an attack. How long will it take to burn 300.000 corpses?"

Disagreement:
First, it maybe true to take 3 days to completely burn 6 bodies. However, we were not talking about cremation ceremony here. We were talking about burn to death. How many minutes can a human being endure before he or she was burn to death? Thanks heaven it is not 3 days!! Besides, if the reviewer had read through the book (or any other documents), not all 300,000 corpses were burn, a lot of them were buried or dumped into river. Please read the book before jump into conclusion and make such a harsh criticism.

Second, Japanese soldier did have machine gun. Of course not as powerful as the modern model, but they did have machine gun. Japanese did not start the war un-prepared. Besides, how difficult it is to kill civilians (especially elderly, small children and babies) who have no weapon at all? It did not even need weapons for mass-destruction. In addition, if one likes to play the number, here it is: The number of the Japanese troop invaded Nanking was around 50, 000. The peak of the ciaos was around 6 to 8 weeks. The conservative estimation of casualty is from 260, 000 to 350,000 during that period. Do the math yourself! See how possible it is! I have to emphasize that it is not my intension to use these numbers to prove the Massacre did occurred, that would be too shaky. The real evidences were presented in the book and the documents it referred. I merely use these numbers here to show that one can not use these numbers to claim it is not possible that the Massacre occurred.

Third, though I have no intension to dishonor anybody's ancestor, I have to point out that the credential of reviewer's great uncle's words is really questionable for the following reasons:

Scenario 1: His great uncle was in Nanking with the Japanese army while the Massacre occurred. Then it is possible he participated in the crime (thought may not be voluntarily, I hope). It is a common sense that one can not use the words from the accused as objective evidence. Especially when he or she is denying the crime accused.

Scenario 2: His great uncle was not in Nanking while the Massacre occurred. Then all he knew about the event were from the propaganda in the army, which by all means could only be more misleading than any outside propaganda.

One question I would like to ask here: how many casualties qualify it as a massacre? Even if it is propaganda, even if only 10% or even 1% of the reports were true, it is still a horrible crime. Besides, Nanking Massacre was such a crime not only for the number of civilian casualty, but also the cruel way the victims were killed. Think about it, if one of the women, just ONE, that were tortured, raped, before they were killed were your own mother, wife or daughter, could anyone just shrug and say "it is ridiculous, it is just propaganda...."? If one of the victims of the "killing game" (reported by the Japanese newspaper, not Western or Chinese propaganda) is your own father, brother or son, could anyone just shrug and say "it is ridiculous, it is just propaganda...."?

A tragedy such as this must not be forgotten if we don't want history repeat itself. Human being will only advance if we can recognize the mistakes we made and put in effort to prevent it from happening again.

239 of 251 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The story that must be told..... November 11, 2004

By EricCinSF

Format:Paperback

I am saddened at Iris Chang's recent death. She was truly a brilliant young historian who courageously told the story of Japanese atrocities in China during WW2. This story, up until now, received little attention in the United States. This I could never understand. Yet Ms. Chang, through her relentless research, has uncovered a gruesome and horrific part of human history and told it to the world. I am very disturbed by all the comments written on this forum by people who claim these stories are communist China (PRC) propaganda. Hardly. The Chinese in Taiwan (ROC), PRC's archenemy, share the same views on these irrefutable facts of East Asian history. I don't blame the Japanese people and others on this forum,who seem to be using this book review section as their personal blog to argue WW2 facts (some of whom have submitted multiple entries).Perhaps, they are ignorant and misinformed. Perhaps, they just can't accept that the ugliness demonstrated by the Japanese may be a part of them.

130 of 134 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A forgotten holocause November 14, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I could not read Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II more than a few pages or at most a chapter at a time. I could not bear to look at many of the pictures. The story she tells -- of the brutal murdering, rape, and desecration of Nanking in 1937, causing several hundred thousand deaths -- was just too much for me. This is a story, however, that must be learned and read. Beyond the individual tales of torture, rape, vivisection, beheadings, and rapes, however, are the larger questions. First, the events of Nanking were front page news (with photographs) in the New York Times and other sources as it occurred, yet apparently little western reaction ensued. How can the world so easily accept genocide or democide? Chang's comment: "Apparently some quirk in human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes provided only that they occur far enough away to pose no personal threat." (As Chang notes, the modern equivalent to Nanking is the nightly CNN tapes of Rwanda and Bosnia, again seen in the comfort of our homes). Second, and mercifully balanced against this corporate apathy are the few heros, Europeans and Americans, who created a "safety zone" in the city and saved perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives. She describes John Rabe, a Nazi party member resident in Nanking, as the "Iskar Schindler of China". Stories such as the Nanking Rape, the Jewish Holocaust, and other modern holocausts must be taught and remembered, or they bear even greater likelihood of repetition than the already depressing scorecard from this century shows.