The Rape of Nanking

Iris Chang

Hardcover

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In December 1937, flush with confidence from their victories over the Nationalists in Beijing and Shanghai, the Japanese Army swept into Nanking and, over the next seven weeks, looted and burned the city and systematically raped, brutalized and murdered more than 250,000 defenseless civilians. Officially denied by the Japanese government, the story of this atrocity has been suppressed for more than half a century. Now Iris Chang, a Chinese-American writer whose own grandparents survived the massacre, reveals the full horror of their experience and puts a human face on one of the century's worst horrors.

Chang tells the story from three very different perspectives: that of the Chinese who endured it; the Japanese soldiers who performed it; and that of a heroic group of European and American businessmen and clergy living in Nanking. Led by John Rabe, a German and a member of the Nazi party, these foreigners risked their own lives by defying the Japanese authorities and creating a safety zone in the middle of the city that harbored perhaps 100,000 Chinese.

Book Details

Publisher: Turtleback
Publish Date: Jan 1st, 2019
Pages: 360
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.74in - 5.91in - 1.18in - 0.90lb
EAN: 9781663611833
Recommended age: 18-UP
Categories: • Asia - China• Asia - Japan• Wars & Conflicts - World War II - General

About the Author

Iris Chang (1968-2004) lived and worked in California. She was a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana and worked briefly as a reporter in Chicago before winning a graduate fellowship to the writing seminar 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 worldwide critical acclaim. She was 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.

Praise for this book

A powerful new work of history and moral inquiry. Chang takes great care to establish an accurate accounting of the dimensions of the violence.--Chicago Tribune

Iris Chang's research on the Nanking holocaust yields a new and expanded telling of this World War II atrocity and reflects thorough research. The book is excellent; its story deserves to be heard.--Beatrice S. Bartlett, professor of history, Yale University

Heartbreaking.... An utterly compelling book. The descriptions of the atrocities raise fundamental questions not only about imperial Japanese militarism but the psychology of the torturers, rapists, and murderers.--Frederic Wakeman, director of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Something beautiful, an act of justice, is occurring in America today concerning something ugly that happened long ago.... Because of Chang s book, the second rape of Nanking is ending.--George F. Will, syndicated columnist

In her important new book ... Iris Chang, whose own grandparents were survivors, recounts the grisly massacre with understandable outrage.--Orville Schell, The New York Times Book Review

Anyone interested in the relation between war, self-righteousness, and the human spirit will find The Rape of Nanking of fundamental importance. It is scholarly, an exciting investigation, and a work of passion. In places it is almost unbearable to read, but it should be readonly if the past is understood can the future be navigated.--Ross Terrill, author of Mao, China in Our Time, and Madame Mao