The Rape of Nanking - Rambling Readers

English language

Published Oct. 25, 1999 by Tandem Library.

ISBN:: 978-0-613-18077-1

(1 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 …

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.

14 editions

Max Pearl reviewed The rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

Grim but necessary read

4 stars

I knew almost nothing about this event, although I had heard of it vaguely. Reading this was eye-opening. Not only for the incredible brutality of the event, but how well it had been hidden from most people's knowledge of history of the WWII era.

The book tells a lot of interesting stories of people who were there, and what they experienced. One of the most ironic was the Nazi who was dedicating himself to saving as many Chinese people from the Japanese as possible.

It's a well-written book, and covers a lot of the bases - both of the even itself, and how the event was kind of buried in history. The one quibble I have with the book is that it is very repetitive in describing the brutality of the event. I think the author thought this was necessary, and I could see how you could argue that - …

I knew almost nothing about this event, although I had heard of it vaguely. Reading this was eye-opening. Not only for the incredible brutality of the event, but how well it had been hidden from most people's knowledge of history of the WWII era.

The book tells a lot of interesting stories of people who were there, and what they experienced. One of the most ironic was the Nazi who was dedicating himself to saving as many Chinese people from the Japanese as possible.

It's a well-written book, and covers a lot of the bases - both of the even itself, and how the event was kind of buried in history. The one quibble I have with the book is that it is very repetitive in describing the brutality of the event. I think the author thought this was necessary, and I could see how you could argue that - but it made the book a very difficult read.