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After fierce fighting in Shanghai, the Japanese occupied the old Chinese imperial city of Nanking on 13 December 1937. Over the next six weeks, the Japanese massacred more than 300,000 Chinese and raped more than 80,000 women. But these bare figures don't begin to describe the atrocities. The Japanese indulged in execution contests to see who could behead the most civilians in the shortest time, they burned their victims, they buried them alive, they set dogs on them. No form of mutilation and torture was too extreme or bizarre and no one escaped. Men, women, children and babies were all butchered.
What makes all this even more unbelievable is that there was no reason for this other than sadism. The Japanese army ran riot and indulged its blood lust; moreover it didn't even attempt to conceal what it was doing from eyewitnesses. The killings and the rapes all took place in public. So how come we all know so little about it? The answers, as ever, are part coincidence and part Realpolitik. The onset of the Second World War did overshadow events in China and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did help to cast the Japanese as victims, rather than aggressors, in some people's eyes in the post-war period. And in the aftermath of the war, everyone had a vested interest in keeping their mouth shut. Japan turned from enemy of the US to ally--as one of the strongest bastions of capitalism in a Far East they feared was becoming progressively more communist. Moreover, the People's Republic of China conspired to play down Nanking as it sought to gain an economic foothold in the world and didn't dare to alienate the West in the process.
So it is to Iris Chang's credit that she has dragged Nanking back into our collective consciousness. She doesn't sensationalise, neither does she spare us any of the details. She describes events from the point of view of the Japanese, the Chinese and the independent Westerners living in Nanking, but even so she fails to come up with a convincing explanation for the scale of the atrocities. --John Crace
Review
"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
"Chang reminds us that however blinding the atrocities in Nanking may be, they are not forgettable--at least not without peril to civilization itself." --The Detroit News
"A story that Chang recovers with raw urgency...an important step towards recognition of this tragedy." --San Francisco Bay Guardian
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The book is organised into three main sections; the first looks at source material of the Rape as it happened from Japanese, Chinese and Western perspectives. The second section is an analysis of such things as how the Rape was reported on at the time, how the Japanese who perpetrated these crimes were, or in some cases were not, punished, and what became of the survivors of the Rape. The third and final section looks at historiography; the ways in which 'history' is made. Chang also attempts to ascertain why a shocking level of selective amnesia seems to surround the Rape, in both Japan and the West. This reduction of the Rape to a mere footnote in most history books dealing with World War Two is what Chang calls 'a second Rape'.
'The Rape of Nanking' is not a light book, and it contains descriptions and pictures of acts so brutal and sordid that it is impossible not to be shocked. But rather than merely describe the events which took place, Chang also sets out clear and convincing arguments about why they took place and in this way she also offers insights into human nature. When faced, for example, with the apparently irreconcilable politeness of Japanese people with the brutality of their soldiers in Nanking, the author argues that politeness may actually be linked to brutality in a Japanese cultural context; Samurai were entitled to chop off a peasant's head if, when asked a question, the peasant did not answer in a way which the Samurai deemed polite enough. It is these immensely perceptive discussions which help make 'The Rape of Nanking' such an important and intellectually powerful book.
In a book crowded with the details of horror, Chang also details the heroic stories of people who, through amazing strength and determination, managed to survive the horrendous mental and physical pain of the Rape. Also interesting are the stories of people such as John Rabe, a Nazi Party Member resident in Nanking at the time of the Rape, who was the head of the committee which ran the Nanking Safety Zone. Dubbed by Chang to be the Schindler of China, Rabe is credited with helping to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Chinese.
Ultimately, 'The Rape of Nanking' is about how, in Chang's own words "the veneer of civilisation seems to be exceedingly thin - one that can be easily stripped away, especially by the stresses of war". The book ought to be read, because it will go some way to redress the lack of knowledge in the West about the Rape, but also because the event still impacts upon Sino-Japanese relations to this day. The Rape of Nanking is an event which we should learn about and never forget, and with this book, Chang has given us the opportunity to do so.
The book itself is moving and in some places shows the degrading extent man goes to in times of war. A well documented book which highlights the trouble the people of Nanking found themselves in while under Japanese occupation. The writer wants Japan to acknowledge the harm they did to the Nanking people and for something as terrible as this to be remembered so it is not repeated.
Nonetheless, Chang's case would have been stronger had she avoided hyping hard facts which are so stark and crude they did not need any hyping. In any case, this is a must read for anyone interested in the Japanese campaign in China in the 1930s.
Recently I found out this book is completely based on Propaganda, just like some people already commented... Read more
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