The Rape of Nanking is arguably the most famous English language book regarding the Nanjing Massacre. Written by Iris Chang and published in 1997, it could have been the definitive work about it and probably should have been. But it isn’t. Chang, a Chinese American whose parents emigrated from Taiwan and whose maternal grandparents were evacuees from Nanjing in 1937, had heard since her childhood about all of the terrible things the Japanese did in China during the war, and had reached her verdict about the invaders long before she ever put pen to paper. Consequently, in her book she’s out to confirm her beliefs–at the expense of any modicum of objectivity. To be sure, she does some things very well. The early chapters, concentrating on pre-war Japanese nationalism and militarism influencing the breakdown of the Imperial Army’s behavior in Nanjing, as well as her explanation for the city’s quick sack help to shed much light on some old questions. But from then on, the book rapidly deteriorates into a litany of atrocities and an ongoing, barely controlled anti-Japanese rant. From my repeated readings, some of her research strikes me as careless, opportunistic, or both, I’m not sure. She does whatever she can to make the Japanese look even worse than they already do, either by using flimsy evidence to try to inflate the generally accepted body count of two to three hundred thousand, using questionable material (firsthand witnesses interviewed sixty years after the fact and Chinese research/investigations) while presenting it as gospel truth, and, in two cases, one right after the other, intentionally citing one seriously disputed source and another disproved one. And how do we know that these two sources are tainted? She tells us, after each instance, in the very next sentence. Her treatment of the general in charge of the Nanjing region, Matsui Iwane, begun with grudging promise (She determines that he had obviously lost control of his army, and Nanjing, through his own poor health and imperial politics, and by documented accounts, made efforts to rectify the situation.), ends with her dismissive description of his failure to implicate the emperor at the Tokyo War Trials as “perplexing.” How so? As she spelled out early on, the Japanese had been indoctrinated into the belief that only the emperor’s life mattered. Matsui was simply carrying out his duty to the end. Don’t get me wrong. I agree with Chang’s basic viewpoint: something incredibly evil happened here in Nanjing and needs to be adequately addressed. This is why this book makes me so angry. Why so aggressively espouse a toll and nature of deaths, violations, and other atrocities that rouse such extreme suspicion? What could have been more accurately verified would have been no less of a crime against humanity. And not giving the Japanese a fair hearing? There was nothing to be afraid of. They never had a case. And what purpose did using bad sources serve? It only makes her look bad. All she had to do was present the facts–from both sides. That would have been enough. Instead, she resorted too often to agenda driven speculation and supposition, which, in my opinion, damage her credibility and weaken her work–something that I’m sure make Japanese apologists very happy. That being said, hardly anyone today denies that the Nanjing Massacre happened. And after getting past all of her spin, it’s there to be seen in her book. The fact that it’s in English is testimony to her greatest achievement. She was the first to make an in-depth look at what happened widely available to the English-speaking world. With her book, subtitled The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, the Nanjing Massacre will be remembered. For this, Chang, who died in 2004, should be remembered too. And remembered well.

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Click on the play button below to hear the Nanjing tradition of sounding air raid sirens throughout the city every December 13th to commemorate the beginning of the Battle of Nanjing in 1937.



(This recording was made from my building's roof on 12/13/11)