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by: Iris Chang  List Price: $27.50 Price: $11.95 You Save: $15.55 (57%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Dewey Decimal Number: 951.042 EAN: 9780465068357 Edition: 1st ed ISBN: 0465068359 Label: Basic Books Manufacturer: Basic Books Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 304 Publication Date: November 21, 1997 Publisher: Basic Books Studio: Basic Books Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com: 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. Product Description: In December 1937, in what was then the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (Nanjing) and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured, and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity—one of the worst in world history—continues to be denied by the Japanese government.Based on extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents in four different languages (many never before published), Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, has written what will surely be the definitive, English-language history of this horrifying episode—one that the Japanese have tried for years to erase from public consciousness.The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers who performed it; of the Chinese civilians who endured it; and finally 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. It was Chang who discovered the diaries of the German leader of this rescue effort, John Rabe, whom she calls the “Oskar Schindler of China.” A loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler but far from the terror planned in his Nazi-controlled homeland, he worked tirelessly to save the innocent from slaughter.But this book does more than just narrate details of an orgy of violence; it attempts to analyze the degree to which the Japanese imperial government and its militaristic culture fostered in the Japanese soldier a total disregard for human life.Finally, it tells one more shocking story: Despite the fact that the death toll at Nanking exceeded the immediate deaths from the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (and even the total wartime casualty count of entire European countries), the Cold War led to a concerted effort on the part of the West and even the Chinese to court the loyalty of Japan and stifle open discussion of this atrocity. Indeed, Chang characterized this conspiracy of silence, which persists to this day, as “a second rape.” Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Shocking, Heartbreaking, but NecessaryIt astounds me that so few people know about the horrific events in China, and particularly Nanking, during WWII. This book can change that. No one can read the work without coming away with a new understanding of how easily human nature can be twisted to doing the unthinkable. Like the Nazis of Germany, the Japanese soldiers talked about in the work are people just like we are, but because of the circumstances and culture in which they were thrust they were capable of truly horrific things. The ... Read More Rating: - remember not only the number of people slaughteredThe Rape of Nanking is historically accurate. Since I have lived in China for a very long time, I have heard about this horrible massacre since I was a little girl. I have heard in news that Japan had concealed this event even from its own people. The leaders of the country had been in denial of this whole historical event for many years. The teachers had taught the students the false information in their history class. I even heard that Japan had burned those textbook that included the details ... Read More Rating: - The Forgotten HolocaustIn the years since World War II era China, much has been done to cover the atrocities of the Japanese army in Nanjing. Relatively few people know about what happened during this horrific time, and even fewer understand the many years of persecution which led to this event. Japanese aggression was not limited to this event, nor was it limited to the era: decades before this Japan was attacking and manipulating China (as were other foreign powers). For understanding exactly what happened ... Read More Rating:  - Japan's dirty secretI have read other accounts of Japan's barbaric behaviour in China but this one is as nightmarish as the accounts of Germanys' entry into Poland and Russia in WW2 . .Japan still does not acknowledge its culpability for the atrocities it committed,whereas Germany has compensated those most affected by their action.Whereas Germany has exhibiter remorse Japan's history books do not acknowledge their involvement.The author serves to remind us those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it. Rating: - What a TragedyI could not believe what I was reading, a horrific story of just how bad the human race can be. I honestly had never heard of Nanking and I've read several books on WWII. This book is graphic in its detail of just how badly the Chinese people, women in particular, we treated. I found it difficult to put the book down and would certainly recommend it. 
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