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{{Short description|1997 non-fiction book by Iris Chang}} |
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{{Infobox book |
{{Infobox book |
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| name = The Rape of Nanking |
| name = The Rape of Nanking |
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| title_orig = |
| title_orig = |
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| translator = |
| translator = |
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| image = |
| image = TheRapeOfNanking 1edCover.jpg |
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| caption = Cover of the first edition |
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| image_caption = First edition cover of ''The Rape of Nanking'' |
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| author = [[Iris Chang]] |
| author = [[Iris Chang]] |
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| illustrator = |
| illustrator = |
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| cover_artist = Rick Pracher |
| cover_artist = Rick Pracher |
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| country = United States |
| country = [[United States]] |
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| language = English |
| language = [[English language|English]] |
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| series = |
| series = |
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| subject = [[ |
| subject = [[Nanjing Massacre]] |
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| genre = |
| genre = |
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| publisher = [[Basic Books]] |
| publisher = [[Basic Books]] |
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| pub_date = 1997 |
| pub_date = 1997 |
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| media_type = Print ([[Hardcover]]) |
| media_type = Print ([[Hardcover]]) |
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| pages = 290 |
| pages = 290 ''(1st edition)'' |
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| isbn = 0-465-06835-9 |
| isbn = 0-465-06835-9 |
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| dewey= 951.04/2 21 |
| dewey = 951.04/2 21 |
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| congress= DS796.N2 C44 1997 |
| congress = DS796.N2 C44 1997 |
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| oclc= 37281852 |
| oclc = 37281852 |
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| preceded_by = |
| preceded_by = |
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| followed_by = |
| followed_by = |
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| website = [http://www.irischang.net/books/index.html www.irischang.net/books] |
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}} |
}} |
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{{Nanjing Massacre}} |
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'''''The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II''''' is a [[Bestseller|bestselling]] 1997 [[non-fiction]] book written by [[Iris Chang]] about the 1937–1938 [[Nanking Massacre]], the massacre and atrocities committed by the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] after it captured [[Nanjing]], then capital of [[Republic of China|China]], during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]]. It describes the events leading up to the Nanking Massacre and the atrocities that were committed. The book presents the view that the [[Japanese government]] has not done enough to redress the atrocities. It is one of the first major English-language books to introduce the Nanking Massacre to [[Western world|Western]] and [[Eastern world|Eastern]] readers alike, and has been translated into several languages.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.irischangmemorialfund.org/A_Brief_Biography_of_Iris_Chang.pdf|title=A Brief Biography of Iris Chang|publisher=Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WW II in Asia|accessdate=2007-07-27|format=PDF}}</ref> |
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'''''The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II''''' is a [[Bestseller|bestselling]] 1997 [[non-fiction]] book written by [[Iris Chang]] about the 1937–1938 [[Nanjing Massacre]] — the [[mass murder]] and [[Wartime sexual violence|mass rape]] of Chinese civilians committed by the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] in [[Nanjing]], the capital of the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]], immediately after the [[Battle of Nanjing]] during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]]. It describes the events leading up to the Nanjing Massacre, provides a graphic detail of the war crimes and atrocities committed by Japanese troops, and lambastes the [[Japanese government]] for its refusal to rectify the atrocities. It also criticizes the Japanese people for their ignorance about the massacre. It is one of the first major English-language books to introduce the Nanjing Massacre to [[Western world|Western]] and [[Eastern world|Eastern]] readers alike, and has been translated into several languages.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.irischangmemorialfund.org/A_Brief_Biography_of_Iris_Chang.pdf |title = A Brief Biography of Iris Chang |publisher = Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WW II in Asia |access-date=2007-07-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070805185413/http://www.irischangmemorialfund.org/A_Brief_Biography_of_Iris_Chang.pdf |archive-date=2007-08-05 }}</ref> The book significantly renewed public interest in Japanese wartime conduct in [[China]], [[Korea]], [[Southeast Asia]] (including the [[Philippines]]) and the [[Pacific]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Edward Drea|title=Researching Japanese War Crimes Records|publisher=National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Groups|year=2006|isbn=1-880875-28-4|url=https://www.archives.gov/files/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf|page=3}}</ref> |
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The book was a source of fame for Chang but was also controversial; it was received with both acclaim and criticism by the public and by academics. It has been praised as a work that "shows more clearly than any previous account" the extent and brutality of the episode,<ref name="KirbyForward">Forward by William C. Kirby, in: {{cite book|author=Iris Chang|title=The Rape of Nanking|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1998|isbn=0-465-06835-9}}</ref> while at the same time it was criticized as "seriously flawed" and "full of misinformation and harebrained explanations".<ref name="Fogel">{{cite journal|journal=The Journal of Asian studies|author=Joshua A. Fogel|title=Reviewed Work|month=August|year=1998|pages=818–820|volume=57|issue=3|jstor=2658758}}</ref> Chang's research on the book was credited with the finding of the diaries of [[John Rabe]] and [[Minnie Vautrin]], both of whom played important roles in the [[Nanking Safety Zone]], a designated area in Nanjing that protected Chinese civilians during the Nanking Massacre.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17">{{cite news|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/17/CMGCNBQRRP1.DTL|title=Historian Iris Chang won many battles/The war she lost raged within|publisher=SFGate|date=2005-04-17|accessdate=2007-07-22 | first=Heidi | last=Benson}}</ref> |
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The book received both acclaim and criticism by the public and by academics. It has been praised as a work that "shows more clearly than any previous account" the extent and brutality of the episode,<ref name="KirbyForward">Foreword by William C. Kirby, in: {{cite book|author=Iris Chang|title=The Rape of Nanking|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1998|isbn=0-465-06835-9|url=https://archive.org/details/rapeofnankingfor00chan}}</ref> while elements of Chang's analysis of the motivations for the events, Japanese culture, and her calculation of the total numbers killed and raped were criticized as inaccurate because of her lack of training as a historian.<ref name="Fogel">{{cite journal |author=Joshua A. Fogel |date=August 1998 |title=Reviewed Works: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |publisher=Association for Asian Studies |volume=57 |issue=3 |pages=818–820 |doi=10.2307/2658758 |jstor=2658758}}</ref> Chang's research on the book was credited with the finding of the diaries of [[John Rabe]] and [[Minnie Vautrin]], both of whom played important roles in the [[Nanking Safety Zone]], a designated area in Nanjing that protected Chinese civilians during the Nanjing Massacre.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17">{{cite news |url = http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/17/CMGCNBQRRP1.DTL |title = Historian Iris Chang won many battles/The war she lost raged within |newspaper = [[SFGate]] |date=2005-04-17 |access-date=2007-07-22 |first=Heidi |last=Benson }}</ref> |
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The book prompted [[AOL]] executive [[Ted Leonsis]] to fund and produce ''[[Nanking (film)|Nanking]]'', a 2007 [[documentary film]] about the Nanking Massacre.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/30/AR2006073000026.html|title=Ted Leonsis Takes a Sharp Turn|publisher=The Washington Post|date=2006-07-31|accessdate=2007-07-22 | first=Thomas | last=Heath}}</ref> |
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The book prompted [[AOL]] executive [[Ted Leonsis]] to fund and produce ''[[Nanking (2007 film)|Nanking]]'', a 2007 [[documentary film]] about the eponymous massacre.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/30/AR2006073000026.html|title=Ted Leonsis Takes a Sharp Turn|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=2006-07-31|access-date=2007-07-22 | first=Thomas | last=Heath}}</ref> |
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==Inspiration== |
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When Iris Chang was a child, she was told by her immigrant grandparents, who had escaped from China via [[Taiwan]] to the United States during [[World War II]], that during the Nanking Massacre, the Japanese "sliced babies not just in half but in thirds and fourths." In the introduction of ''The Rape of Nanking,'' she wrote that throughout her childhood, the Nanking Massacre "remained buried in the back of [her] mind as a metaphor for unspeakable evil." When she searched the local public libraries in her school and found nothing, she wondered why no one had written a book about it.<ref name="RapeOfNanking7-8">{{cite book|author=Iris Chang|title=The Rape of Nanking|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1998|isbn=0-465-06835-9|pages=7–8}}</ref> |
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== Background == |
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The subject of the Nanking Massacre entered Chang's life again almost two decades later when she learned of producers who had completed documentary films about it. One of the producers was Shao Tzuping, who helped produce ''Magee's Testament," a film that contains footage of the Nanking Massacre itself, shot by the [[missionary]] [[John Magee (missionary)|John Magee]].<ref name="Princeton">{{cite web|url=http://www.princeton.edu/~nanking/html/proposal.pdf|title=Proposal for The Nanking Conference at Princeton University|publisher=Princeton University|accessdate=2007-07-23|format=PDF}}</ref> The other producer was Nancy Tong, who, together with Christine Choy, produced and co-directed ''In The Name of the Emperor',' a film containing a series of interviews with Chinese, American, and Japanese citizens.<ref name="Princeton" /> Chang began talking to Shao and Tong, and soon she was connected to a network of activists who felt the need to document and publicize the Nanking Massacre.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking," pp. 8-9</ref> In December 1994, she attended a conference on the Nanking Massacre, held in [[Cupertino, California|Cupertino]], [[California]], and what she saw and heard at the conference motivated her to write ''The Rape of Nanking.''<ref name="Penguin">{{cite web|url=http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/rape_of_nanking.html|title=The Rape of Nanking|publisher=Penguin Group USA|accessdate=2007-07-22}}</ref> As she wrote in the introduction to the book, while she was at the conference, she was "suddenly in a panic that this terrifying disrespect for death and dying, this reversion in human social evolution, would be reduced to a footnote of history, treated like a harmless glitch in a computer program that might or might not again cause a problem, unless someone forced the world to remember it."<ref name="RapeOfNanking10">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 10</ref> |
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===Inspiration=== |
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As a child, Chang was told by her parents that during the [[Nanjing Massacre]], the Japanese "sliced babies not just in half but in thirds and fourths." Her parents had escaped with their families from [[China]] to [[Taiwan]] and then to the United States after [[World War II]]. In the introduction of ''The Rape of Nanking,'' she wrote that throughout her childhood, the Nanjing Massacre "remained buried in the back of [her] mind as a metaphor for unspeakable evil." When she searched the local public libraries in her school and found nothing, she wondered why no one had written a book about it.<ref name="RapeOfNanking7-8">{{cite book|author=Iris Chang|title=The Rape of Nanking|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1998|isbn=0-465-06835-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/rapeofnankingfor00chan/page/7 7]–8|url=https://archive.org/details/rapeofnankingfor00chan|url-access=registration}}</ref> |
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Chang spent two years on research for the book.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> She found that raw source materials were available in the US, contained in the diaries, films, and photographs of American missionaries, journalists, and military officers who were in [[Nanjing]] at the time of the Nanking Massacre.<ref name="RapeOfNanking11">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 11</ref> Additionally, she traveled to Nanjing to interview survivors of the Nanking Massacre and to read Chinese accounts and confessions by Japanese army veterans.<ref name="SFGate1998">{{cite news|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/07/26/SC77214.DTL|title=Wars of Memory|publisher=SFGate|date=1998-07-26|accessdate=2007-07-21 | first=Charles | last=Burress}}</ref> Chang did not, however, conduct research in Japan, and this left her vulnerable to criticisms on how she portrayed modern Japan in the context of how it deals with its World War II past.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> |
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Chang's research led her to make what one ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' article called "significant discoveries" on the subject of the Nanking Massacre, in the forms of the diaries of two Westerners that were in Nanjing leading efforts to save lives during the Japanese invasion.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> One diary was that of John Rabe, a [[Germans|German]] [[Nazi Party]] member who was the leader of the Nanking Safety Zone, a [[demilitarized zone]] in Nanjing that Rabe and other Westerners set up to protect Chinese civilians.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/NanjingMassacre/NMNR.html|title=Rabe's Records of "The Rape of Nanjing" Discovered|publisher=The Chinese University of Hong Kong|date=1996-09-26|accessdate=2007-07-23}}</ref> The other diary belonged to Minnie Vautrin, the American missionary who saved the lives of about 10,000 women and children when she provided them with shelter in [[Ginling College]].<ref name="Vautrin">{{cite web|url=http://www.siu.edu/~siupress/titles/s00_titles/hu_goddess.htm|title=American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking|publisher=Southern Illinois University|accessdate=2007-07-23 |archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20070525134253/http://www.siu.edu/~siupress/titles/s00_titles/hu_goddess.htm |archivedate = May 25, 2007}}</ref> The diaries documented the events of the Nanking Massacre from the perspectives of their writers, and provided detailed accounts of atrocities that they saw, as well as information surrounding the circumstances of the Nanking Safety Zone. Chang dubbed Rabe the "[[Oskar Schindler]] of Nanking" and Vautrin the "[[Anne Frank]] of Nanking".<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> Rabe's diary is over 800 pages, and contains one of the most detailed accounts of the Nanking Massacre.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/?id=PrAoHzoP1QkC&pg=RA1-PA121&lpg=RA1-PA121&dq=%22john+rabe%22+diary+%22detailed+accounts%22|author=Malcolm Trevor|title=Japan: Restless Competitor|publisher=Routledge|year=2001|isbn=1-903350-02-6|pages=121}}</ref> Translated into English, it was published in 1998 by [[Random House]] as ''[[The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe]]''.<ref>{{cite book|author=John Rabe|title=The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe|publisher=Random House|year=1998|isbn=0-375-40211-X}}</ref> Vautrin's diary recounts her personal experience and feelings on the Nanking Massacre; in it, an entry reads, "There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today."<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/223038.stm|title=Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanjing|publisher=BBC News|date=2005-04-11|accessdate=2007-07-27}}</ref> It was used as source material by Hua-ling Hu for a biography of Vautrin and her role during the Nanking Massacre, entitled ''[[American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DH24Ad01.html|title=An American hero in Nanking|publisher=Asia Times|date=2002-08-24|accessdate=2007-07-27}}</ref> |
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The subject of the Nanjing Massacre entered Chang's life again almost two decades later when she learned of producers who had completed documentary films about it. One of the producers was Shao Tzuping, who helped produce ''Magee's Testament'', a film that contains footage of the Nanjing Massacre itself, shot by the [[missionary]] [[John Magee (missionary)|John Magee]].<ref name="Princeton">{{cite web|url=http://www.princeton.edu/~nanking/html/proposal.pdf|title=Proposal for The Nanking Conference at Princeton University|publisher=Princeton University|access-date=2007-07-23|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070110100610/http://www.princeton.edu/~nanking/html/proposal.pdf|archive-date=2007-01-10}}</ref> The other producer was Nancy Tong, who, together with [[Christine Choy]], produced and co-directed ''In The Name of the Emperor'',<ref>{{IMDb title|id=tt0113411|title=In the Name of the Emperor}}</ref> a film containing a series of interviews with Chinese, American, and Japanese citizens.<ref name="Princeton" /> Chang began talking to Shao and Tong, and soon she was connected to a network of activists who felt the need to document and publicize the Nanjing Massacre.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9">Chang, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=8XnKuSxod8wC The Rape of Nanking]''</ref>{{Rp|8-9}} |
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==The book== |
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''The Rape of Nanking'' is structured into three main parts. The first uses a technique that Chang called "the [[Rashomon (film)|Rashomon perspective]]" to narrate the events of the Nanking Massacre, from three different perspectives: that of the Japanese military, the Chinese victims, and the Westerners who tried to help Chinese civilians. The second part concerns the postwar reaction to the massacre, especially that of the American and European governments. The third part of the book examines the circumstances that, Chang believed, have kept knowledge of the massacre out of public consciousness decades after the war.<ref name="RapeOfNanking14-15">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 14-15</ref> |
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In December 1994, she attended a conference on the Nanjing Massacre, held in [[Cupertino, California|Cupertino]], [[California]], and what she saw and heard at the conference motivated her to write her 1997 book''.''<ref name="Penguin">{{cite web|url=http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/rape_of_nanking.html|title=The Rape of Nanking|publisher=Penguin Group USA|access-date=2007-07-22|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927210146/http://us.penguingroup.com/static/rguides/us/rape_of_nanking.html|archive-date=2007-09-27}}</ref> As she wrote in the book's introduction, while she was at the conference:<blockquote>I was suddenly in a panic that this terrifying disrespect for death and dying, this reversion in human social evolution, would be reduced to a footnote of history, treated like a harmless glitch in a computer program that might or might not again cause a problem, unless someone forced the world to remember it.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|10}}</blockquote> |
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===Atrocities=== |
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The book depicted in detail the killing, torture, and rape that occurred during the Nanking Massacre. Chang listed and described the kinds of torture that were visited upon the residents, including [[live burial]]s, [[mutilation]], "death by fire", "death by ice", and "death by dogs". Based on the testimony of a survivor of the massacre, Chang also described a killing contest amongst a group of Japanese soldiers to determine who could kill the fastest.<ref name="RapeOfNanking83-88">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 83-88</ref> On the rape that occurred during the massacre, Chang wrote that "certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history." She estimated that the number of women raped ranged from 20,000 to as many as 80,000,<ref name="RapeOfNanking89">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 89. Chang's sources listed as: Catherine Rosair, ''For One Veteran, Emperor Visit Should Be Atonement''; George Fitch, ''Nanking Outrages''; Li En-han, ''Questions of How Many Chinese Were Killed by the Japanese Army in the Great Nanking Massacre''</ref> and stated that women from all classes were raped, including [[Buddhist nun]]s.<ref name="RapeOfNanking90">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 90. Chang's sources listed as: Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking''</ref> Furthermore, rape occurred in all locations and at all hours,<ref name="RapeOfNanking90-91">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 90-91. Chang's sources listed as: Fitch, ''Nanking Outrages''; Gao Xingzu et al., ''Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing''</ref> and both very young and very old women were raped.<ref name="RapeOfNanking91a">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 91. Chang's sources listed as: Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking''; David Nelson Sutton, ''All Military Aggression in China Including Atrocities Against Civilians and Others''; Shuhsi Hsu, ''Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone''</ref> Not even pregnant women were spared, Chang wrote, and that after gang rape, Japanese soldiers "sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out the [[fetus]]es for amusement".<ref name="RapeOfNanking91b">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 91. Chang's sources listed as: Dagong Daily (Feb. 7, 1938), ''A Debt of Blood''; Xinhua Daily (Feb. 24, 1951); Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking''; Tang Shunsan, interview with Chang; Gao Xingzu et al., ''Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing''</ref> Not all rape victims were women, according to the book, Chinese men were sodomized and forced to perform repulsive sexual acts.<ref name="RapeOfNanking95a">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 95. Chang's sources listed as: Shuhsi Hsu, ''Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone''</ref> Some were forced to commit incest—fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers.<ref name="RapeOfNanking95b">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 95. Chang's sources listed as: Guo Qi, ''Shendu xueluilu'', Xijing Pingbao (August 1938).</ref> |
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===Research=== |
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Chang spent two years on research for the book.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> She found source materials in the US, including diaries, films, and photographs of missionaries, journalists, and military officers who were in Nanjing at the time of the massacre.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|11}} Additionally, she traveled to Nanjing to interview survivors of the Nanjing Massacre and to read Chinese accounts and confessions by Japanese army veterans.<ref name="SFGate1998">{{cite news|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/07/26/SC77214.DTL|title=Wars of Memory|publisher=SFGate|date=1998-07-26|access-date=2007-07-21 | first=Charles | last=Burress}}</ref> Also, she incorporated the most recent work on the subject by Chinese and Chinese-American historians by including many disturbing photographs and a myriad of translated documents.<ref> Yang Daqing, "Convergence or Divergence? Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing", ''The American Historical Review'' 104 (1999), p. 7.</ref> |
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Chang wrote of the death toll estimates given by different sources; Chinese military specialist Liu Fang-chu proposed a figure of 430,000, officials at the [[Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall]] and the procurator of the District Court of Nanjing in 1946 stated at least 300,000 were killed, the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]] (IMTFE) judges concluded that more than 260,000 people were killed, Japanese historian Fujiwara Akira approximated 200,000, John Rabe, who "never conducted a systematic count and left Nanking in February", estimated only 50,000 to 60,000, and Japanese author [[Ikuhiko Hata]] argued the number killed was between 38,000 and 42,000.<ref name="RapeOfNanking100">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 100.</ref> |
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Before publication, the book was reviewed by [[Rana Mitter]] and Christian Jessen-Klingenberg of the [[University of Oxford]]; [[Carol Gluck]] of [[Columbia University]]; and [[William C. Kirby]] of [[Harvard University]].<ref>Chang, Iris; The Rape of Nanking; Penguin, London, 1998</ref> At the time of writing, the Japanese government classified Japan’s World War 2 archives, making archival records unavailable to investigators.<ref name="Alan Rosenbaum">{{cite book|author=Alan S. Rosenbaum|title=Is the Holocaust Unique?: Perspectives on Comparative Genocide|publisher=Routledge|year=2018|isbn=9780813344065| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PxdWDwAAQBAJ&q=If+the+Japanese+Foreign+Ministry+and+the+rest+of+the+Japanese+government+truly+care+about+historical+truth,+then+they+should+open+all+their+wartime+archives+to+the+rest+of+the+world+%E2%80%A6+They+shouldn%E2%80%99t+mind+inviting+an+international+task+force+of+historians+%E2%80%93+historians+from+the+U.S.,+China,+Japan,+Ko&pg=PT244}}</ref> |
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The book discussed the research of historian Sun Zhaiwei of the Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences. In his 1990 paper, ''The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population'', Sun estimated the total number of people killed at 377,400. Using Chinese burial records, he calculated that the number of dead exceeded the figure of 227,400. He then added estimates totaling 150,000 given by Japanese Imperial Army Major Ohta Hisao in a confessional report about the Japanese army's disposal efforts of dead bodies, arriving at the sum of 377,400 dead.<ref name="RapeOfNanking101">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 101</ref> |
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==== The diaries ==== |
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Chang wrote that there is "compelling evidence" that the Japanese themselves, at the time, believed that the death toll may have been as high as 300,000. She cited a message that [[Minister for Foreign Affairs (Japan)|Japan's foreign minister]] [[Kōki Hirota]] relayed to his contacts in [[Washington, DC]] in the first month of the massacre on January 17, 1938. The message acknowledged that "not less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians [were] slaughtered, many cases in cold blood."<ref name="RapeOfNanking103-104">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 103-104</ref> |
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Chang's research led her to make what one ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' article called "Significant Discoveries" on the subject of the Nanjing Massacre, in the forms of the diaries of two Westerners who were in Nanjing leading efforts to save lives during the Japanese invasion.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> The diaries documented the events of the Nanjing Massacre from the perspectives of their writers, and provided detailed accounts of atrocities that they saw, as well as information surrounding the circumstances of the [[Nanking Safety Zone]]. |
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One diary was that of [[John Rabe]], a [[Germans|German]] [[Nazi Party]] member who was the leader of the Nanking Safety Zone, a [[demilitarized zone]] in Nanjing that Rabe and other Westerners set up to protect Chinese civilians.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/NanjingMassacre/NMNR.html|title=Rabe's Records of "The Rape of Nanjing" Discovered|publisher=The Chinese University of Hong Kong|date=1996-09-26|access-date=2007-07-23}}</ref> Rabe's diary is over 800 pages, and contains one of the most detailed accounts of the Nanjing Massacre.<ref>{{cite book|author=Malcolm Trevor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PrAoHzoP1QkC&q=%22john+rabe%22+diary+%22detailed+accounts%22&pg=RA1-PA121|title=Japan: Restless Competitor|publisher=Routledge|year=2001|isbn=1-903350-02-6|pages=121}}</ref> Translated into English, it was published in 1998 by [[Random House]] as ''[[The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe]]''.<ref>{{cite book|author=John Rabe|url=https://archive.org/details/goodmanofnanking00rabe|title=The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe|publisher=Random House|year=1998|isbn=0-375-40211-X}}</ref> |
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==Acclaim== |
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[[Image:Rape-of-nanking-cover.gif|thumb|right|250px|Second edition (1998) of the book.]] |
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''The Rape of Nanking'' sold more than half a million copies when it was first published in the U. S., and according to ''[[The New York Times]]'', received general critical acclaim.<ref name="NewYorkTimes">{{cite web|url=http://www.irischang.net/press_article.cfm?n=1|title=History's Shadow Foils Nanking Chronicle|publisher=The New York Times (article hosted by IrisChang.net)|date=1999-05-20|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> Iris Chang became an instant celebrity in the U. S.;<ref name="TimesOnline">{{cite news|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article429065.ece|title=One final victim of the Rape of Nanking?|publisher=Times Online|date=2005-03-17|accessdate=2007-07-21 | location=London | first=Oliver | last=August}}</ref> she was awarded honorary degrees,<ref name="SFGate2004-11-11">{{cite news|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/11/MNGB59PKL01.DTL|title=Chinese American writer found dead in South Bay|publisher=SFGate|date=2004-11-11|accessdate=2007-07-21 | first=Charles | last=Burress}}</ref> invited to give lectures and to discuss the Nanking Massacre on shows such as ''[[Good Morning America]]'', ''[[Nightline (US news program)|Nightline]]'', and ''[[The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer]]'', and was profiled by ''The New York Times'' and featured on the cover of ''[[Reader's Digest]]''.<ref name="Penguin" /> The book was on the [[New York Times Best Seller list|''New York Times''' Best Seller list]] for 10 weeks and sold more than 125,000 copies in four months.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> [[Hillary Clinton]] invited her to the [[White House]], U. S. historian [[Stephen Ambrose]] described her as "maybe the best young historian we've got",<ref name="TimesOnline" /> and the [[Organization of Chinese Americans]] named her National Woman of the Year.<ref name="SFGate2004-11-11" /> The book's popularity prompted a lengthy book tour, with Chang visiting 65 cities in over a year and a half.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> |
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The other diary belonged to [[Minnie Vautrin]], the American missionary who saved the lives of about 10,000 women and children when she provided them with shelter in [[Ginling College]].<ref name="Vautrin">{{cite web|url=http://www.siu.edu/~siupress/titles/s00_titles/hu_goddess.htm|archive-url=https://archive.today/20070525134253/http://www.siu.edu/~siupress/titles/s00_titles/hu_goddess.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=2007-05-25|title=American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking|publisher=Southern Illinois University|access-date=2007-07-23 }}</ref> Vautrin's diary recounts her personal experience and feelings on the Nanjing Massacre; in it, an entry reads, "There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today."<ref>{{cite news|date=2005-04-11|title=Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanjing|work=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/223038.stm|access-date=2007-07-27}}</ref> It was used as source material by Hua-ling Hu for a biography of Vautrin and her role during the Nanjing Massacre, entitled ''[[American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin]]''.<ref>{{cite web|date=2002-08-24|title=An American hero in Nanking|url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DH24Ad01.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020826201217/http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/DH24Ad01.html|url-status=unfit|archive-date=2002-08-26|access-date=2007-07-27|publisher=Asia Times}}</ref> |
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The book received praise from news media. ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' wrote that it was the "first comprehensive examination of the destruction of this Chinese imperial city", and that Chang "skillfully excavated from oblivion the terrible events that took place". ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'' described the book as "a crushing indictment of the Japanese army's behavior". The ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' called it "a powerful new work of history and moral inquiry" and stated that "Chang takes great care to establish an accurate accounting of the dimensions of the violence." ''[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]]'' wrote that it was a "compelling account of a horrendous episode that, until recently, has been largely forgotten", and that "animals do not behave the way the Japanese troops of the Imperial Army behaved."<ref name="MediaPraise">{{cite web|url=http://www.irischang.net/press_article.cfm?n=14|title=Media Praise For The Rape of Nanking|publisher=IrisChang.net|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> |
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Chang dubbed Rabe the "[[Oskar Schindler]] of Nanking" and Vautrin the "[[Anne Frank]] of Nanking."<ref>Chang, Iris. 18 January 2012. "[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/the-nazi-leader-who-in-1937-became-the-oskar-schindler-of-china/251525/ The Nazi Leader Who, in 1937, Became the Oskar Schindler of China]." ''[[The Atlantic]]''.</ref><ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> |
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According to [[William C. Kirby]], Professor of History at [[Harvard University]], Chang "shows more clearly than any previous account just what [the Japanese] did", and that she "draws connections between the slaughter in Europe and in Asia of millions of innocents during World War II".<ref name="KirbyForward" /> Ross Terrill, an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at [[Harvard University]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/author_detail.jsp?id=1000016300|title=Ross Terrill|publisher=Basic Books|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> wrote that the book is "scholarly, an exciting investigation and a work of passion".<ref name="Quotes">Quotes on the Jacket and Interior of - {{cite book|author=Iris Chang|title=The Rape of Nanking|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1998|isbn=0-465-06835-9}}</ref> Beatrice S. Bartlett, [[Emeritus Professor]] of History at [[Yale University]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/bartlett.html|title=Beatrice S. Bartlett|publisher=Yale University|accessdate=2007-07-21 |archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20060920012335/http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/bartlett.html |archivedate = September 20, 2006}}</ref> wrote, "Iris Chang's research on the Nanking holocaust yields a new and expanded telling of this World War II atrocity and reflects thorough research."<ref name="Quotes" /> |
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== |
== Contents == |
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''The Rape of Nanking'' is structured into three main parts. The first uses a technique—what Chang calls the "[[Rashomon (film)|Rashomon perspective]]"—to narrate the events of the massacre from three different perspectives: that of the Japanese military, the Chinese victims, and of the Westerners who tried to help Chinese civilians. The second part concerns the postwar reaction to the massacre, especially that of the American and European governments. The third part of the book examines the circumstances that, Chang believed, have kept knowledge of the massacre out of public consciousness decades after the war.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|14-15}} |
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Joshua A. Fogel, at [[York University]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://chinajapan.org/fogel|title=Joshua A. Fogel|publisher=Sino-Japanese Studies|accessdate=2007-07-22}}</ref> argued that the book is "seriously flawed" and "full of misinformation and harebrained explanations."<ref name="Fogel" /> He suggested that the book "starts to fall apart" when Chang tries to explain why the massacre took place, as she repeatedly comments on "the Japanese psyche", which she sees as "the historical product of centuries of conditioning that all boil down to [[mass murder]]" even though in the introduction, she wrote that she would offer no "commentary on the Japanese character or the genetic makeup of a people who could commit such acts". Fogel asserted that part of the problem was Chang's "lack of training as a historian" and another part was "the book's dual aim as passionate polemic and dispassionate history". He also mentions that she does little critical sifting of her sources, making the book lack it's potential for legitimacy .<ref name="Fogel" /> [[David M. Kennedy (historian)|David M. Kennedy]], a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of history at [[Stanford University]], also pointed out that while Chang noted that "this book is not intended as a commentary on the Japanese character," she then wrote about the "'Japanese identity'—a bloody business, in her estimation, replete with martial competitions, samurai ethics, and the fearsome warriors' code of [[bushido]]", making the inference that "'the path to Nanking' runs through the very marrow of Japanese culture." Kennedy also suggested that "accusation and outrage, rather than analysis and understanding, are this book's dominant motifs, and although outrage is a morally necessary response to Nanjing, it is an intellectually insufficient one."<ref name="Kennedy">{{cite journal | author=David M. Kennedy | title=The Horror : Should the Japanese atrocities in Nanking be equated with the Nazi Holocaust? | url=http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199804/nanking | journal=[[The Atlantic Monthly]] | pages=110–116 | volume=281 | issue=4 |month=April | year=1998 }}</ref> Roger B. Jeans, professor of history at [[Washington and Lee University]], referred to Chang's book as "half-baked history", and criticized her lack of experience with the subject matter: |
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=== Atrocities === |
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<blockquote>In writing about this horrific event, Chang strives to portray it as an unexamined Asian holocaust. Unfortunately, she undermines her argument—she is not a trained historian—by neglecting the wealth of sources in English and Japanese on this event. This leads her into errors such as greatly inflating the population of Nanjing (Nanking) at that time and uncritically accepting the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and contemporary Chinese figures for the numbers of Chinese civilians and soldiers killed. What particularly struck me about her argument was her attempt to charge all Japanese with refusing to accept the fact of the 'Rape of Nanking' and her condemnation of the 'persistent Japanese refusal to come to terms with its past.' |
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The book depicted in detail the killing, torture, and rape that occurred during the Nanjing Massacre. Chang listed and described the kinds of torture that were visited upon the residents, including [[live burial]]s, [[mutilation]], "[[death by fire]]," "[[Freezing to death|death by ice]]," and "death by dogs." Based on the testimony of a survivor of the massacre, Chang also describes a killing contest amongst a group of Japanese soldiers to determine who could kill the fastest.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|83-88}} On the rape that occurred during the massacre, Chang wrote that "certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history." She estimates that the number of women raped ranged from 20,000 to as many as 80,000,<ref name="RapeOfNanking89">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 89, citing: {{Bulleted list|Catherine Rosair, ''For One Veteran, Emperor Visit Should Be Atonement'';|George Fitch, ''Nanking Outrages'';|Li En-han, ''Questions of How Many Chinese Were Killed by the Japanese Army in the Great Nanking Massacre''}}</ref> and states that women from all classes were raped, including [[Buddhist nun]]s.<ref name="RapeOfNanking90">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 90, citing:{{Bulleted list|Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking'';}}</ref> Furthermore, rape occurred in all locations and at all hours,<ref name="RapeOfNanking90-91">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', pp. 90-91, citing:{{Bulleted list|George Fitch, ''Nanking Outrages'';|Gao Xingzu, et al., ''Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing''}}</ref> and both very young and very old women were raped.<ref name="RapeOfNanking91a">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 91, citing:{{Bulleted list|Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking'';|David Nelson Sutton, ''All Military Aggression in China Including Atrocities Against Civilians and Others'';|Shuhsi Hsu, ''Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone''}}</ref> Not even pregnant women were spared, Chang wrote, and that after gang rape, Japanese soldiers "sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out the [[fetus]]es for amusement."<ref name="RapeOfNanking91b">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 91, citing:{{Bulleted list|"A Debt of Blood," ''Dagong Daily'', 7 February 1938;|''Xinhua Daily'', 24 February 1951;|Hu Hua-ling, ''Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking'';|Tang Shunsan, interview with Chang;|Gao Xingzu, et al., ''Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing''}}</ref> Not all rape victims were women, according to the book, Chinese men were sodomized and forced to perform repulsive sexual acts.<ref name="RapeOfNanking95a">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 95, citing: {{Bulleted list|Shuhsi Hsu, ''Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone''}}</ref> Some were forced to commit incest—fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers.<ref name="RapeOfNanking95b">Chang, ''The Rape of Nanking'', p. 95, citing:{{Bulleted list|Guo Qi, August 1938, "Shendu xueluilu," ''Xijing Pingbao''.}}</ref> |
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<ref name=Jeans>{{cite journal|last=Jeans|first=Roger B.|date=January 2005|title=Victims or Victimizers? Museums, Textbooks, and the War Debate in Contemporary Japan|journal=The Journal of Military History|publisher=Society for Military History|volume=69|issue=1|pages=149–195|doi=10.1353/jmh.2005.0025}}</ref></blockquote> |
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=== Death toll === |
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Jeans continued what he calls "giving the lie to Iris Chang's generalizations about 'the Japanese'" by discussing the clashing interest groups within Japanese society over such things as museums, textbooks, and war memory.<ref name=Jeans/> |
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Chang wrote of the death toll estimates given by different sources:<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|100}} |
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* Chinese military specialist Liu Fang-chu proposed a figure of 430,000; officials at the [[Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall]] and the procurator of the District Court of Nanjing in 1946 stated at least 300,000 were killed; |
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* the [[International Military Tribunal for the Far East]] (IMTFE) judges concluded that more than 260,000 people were killed; |
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* Japanese historian [[Akira Fujiwara]] mentioned at least 200,000; |
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* [[John Rabe]], who "never conducted a systematic count and left Nanking in February," estimated 50,000 to 60,000; and |
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* Japanese historian [[Ikuhiko Hata]] argued the number killed was between 38,000 and 42,000. |
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The book discusses the research of historian Sun Zhaiwei of the Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences. In his 1990 paper, "The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population", Sun estimated the total number of people killed at 377,400. Using Chinese burial records, he calculated that the number of dead exceeded the figure of 227,400. He then added estimates totaling 150,000 given by Japanese Imperial Army Major Ohta Hisao in a confessional report about the Japanese army's disposal efforts of dead bodies, arriving at the sum of 377,400 dead.<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|101}} |
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Robert Entenmann, professor of history at [[St. Olaf College]], criticized the work on the grounds that the "Japanese historical background Chang presents is clichéd, simplistic, stereotyped, and often inaccurate."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/history/faculty/entenmann.html|title=Robert Entenmann|publisher=St. Olaf College|accessdate=2007-07-23}}</ref> On Chang's treatment of modern Japanese reaction to the massacre, he writes that Chang seemed "unable to differentiate between some members of the ultranationalist fringe and other Japanese", and that "her own ethnic [[prejudice]] implicitly pervades her book." Stating that Chang's description of the massacre is "open to criticism", Entenmann further commented that Chang "does not adequately explain why the massacre occurred".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/reviewswc3.htm|title=Book review of ''The Rape of Nanking''|publisher=University of the West of England|accessdate=2007-07-23}}</ref> |
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Chang wrote that there is "compelling evidence" that the Japanese themselves, at the time, believed that the death toll may have been as high as 300,000. She cited a message that [[Minister for Foreign Affairs (Japan)|Japan's foreign minister]] [[Kōki Hirota]] relayed to his contacts in [[Washington, DC]] in the first month of the massacre on January 17, 1938. The message acknowledged that "not less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians [were] slaughtered, many cases in cold blood."<ref name="RapeOfNanking8-9" />{{Rp|103-4}} |
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Timothy M. Kelly, professor at Edogawa University,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.uky.edu/CIS/JAT/HallofFame/halloffame/kelly2000.htm|title=Timothy M. Kelly|publisher=University of Kentucky|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> described Chang's work as exhibiting "simple carelessness, sheer sloppiness, historical inaccuracies, and shameless plagiarism." Kelly further criticized Chang for her "lack of attention to detail".{{#tag:ref|As examples of this lack of attention to detail, Kelly cited a number of errors such as incorrectly referring to Commodore [[Matthew C. Perry|Perry]] as "Commander" and writing [[Itô Nobufumi]]'s name as "Ito Nobufumo", without a [[circumflex]] on the letter ''o''. As an example of "sheer sloppiness", Kelly cited Chang's sentence, "Another rape victim was found with a golf stick rammed into her", and noted that "(while) golfers do colloquially refer to their clubs as 'sticks'", the terms "golf club" or "the shaft of a golf club" should have been used.<ref name=Kelly>{{cite journal|author=Timothy M. Kelly|url=http://www.edogawa-u.ac.jp/~tmkelly/research_review_nanking.html|title=Book Review: The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang|journal=Edogawa Women's Junior College Journal|issue=15|month=March|year=2000}}</ref>|group=note}} Finally, Kelly charged that Chang had [[Plagiarism|plagiarized]] passages and an illustration from ''Japan's Imperial Conspiracy'' by [[David Bergamini]].<ref name=Kelly /> |
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== Reception == |
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Kennedy criticized Chang's accusation of "Western indifference" and "Japanese denial" of the massacre as "exaggerated", commenting that "the Western world in fact neither then nor later ignored the Rape of Nanking", "nor is Chang entirely correct that Japan has obstinately refused to acknowledge its wartime crimes, let alone express regret for them." Chang argues that Japan "remains to this day a renegade nation," having "managed to avoid the moral judgment of the civilized world that the Germans were made to accept for their actions in this nightmare time." However, according to Kennedy, this accusation has already become a cliché of Western criticism of Japan, most notably exemplified by [[Ian Buruma]]'s ''The Wages of Guilt'' (1994), whose general thesis might be summarized as "Germany remembers too much, Japan too little." Kennedy pointed out that a vocal Japanese left has long kept the memory of Nanking alive, noting the [[Resolution to renew the determination for peace on the basis of lessons learned from history|1995 resolution]] of Japan's [[House of Councillors]] that expressed "deep remorse" (''fukai hansei'') for the suffering that Japan inflicted on other peoples during World War II and clear [[List of war apology statements issued by Japan|apologies]] (''owabi'') for Imperial Japan's offenses against other nations from two Japanese Prime Ministers.<ref name="Kennedy" /> |
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=== Acclaim === |
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''The Rape of Nanking'' sold more than half a million copies when it was first published in the US, and according to ''[[The New York Times]]'', received general critical acclaim.<ref name="NewYorkTimes">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/20/books/history-s-shadow-foils-nanking-chronicle.html|date=1999-05-20|access-date=2007-07-21|title=History's Shadow Foils Nanking Chronicle|newspaper=The New York Times|last1=Carvajal|first1=Doreen}}</ref> The book remained on the [[New York Times Best Seller list|''New York Times''' Best Seller list]] for 10 weeks and sold more than 125,000 copies in four months.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> Several leading historians said they believe that Chang’s revelation of Japanese wartime crimes and the country’s postwar attempts to cover up and distort history will help raise public awareness of the incident.<ref name=once>{{cite news |url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-jun-06-mn-44838-story.html| title=War Again Is Raging Over Japan's Role in 'Nanking' | author=Sonni Efron | newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=June 6, 1999 }}</ref> |
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Iris Chang became an instant celebrity in the US:<ref name="TimesOnline">{{cite news|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article429065.ece|title=One final victim of the Rape of Nanking?|newspaper=Times Online|date=2005-03-17|access-date=2007-07-21 | location=London | first=Oliver | last=August}}</ref> she was awarded honorary degrees;<ref name="SFGate2004-11-11">{{cite news|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/11/MNGB59PKL01.DTL|title=Chinese American writer found dead in South Bay|publisher=SFGate|date=2004-11-11|access-date=2007-07-21 | first=Charles | last=Burress}}</ref> invited to give lectures and to discuss the Nanjing Massacre on shows such as ''[[Good Morning America]]'', ''[[Nightline (US news program)|Nightline]]'', and ''[[The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer]]''; profiled by ''The New York Times''; and was featured on the cover of ''[[Reader's Digest]]''.<ref name="Penguin" /> Moreover, [[Hillary Clinton]] invited her to the [[White House]]; U.S. historian [[Stephen Ambrose]] described her as "maybe the best young historian we've got;"<ref name="TimesOnline" /> and the [[Organization of Chinese Americans]] named her National Woman of the Year.<ref name="SFGate2004-11-11" /> The book's popularity prompted a lengthy book tour, with Chang visiting 65 cities in over a year and a half.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> |
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Sonni Efron of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' warned that the bitter row over Iris Chang's book may leave Westerners with the "misimpression" that little has been written in Japan about the Nanjing Massacre, when in fact the [[National Diet Library]] holds at least 42 books about the Nanjing massacre and Japan's wartime misdeeds, 21 of which were written by liberals investigating Japan's wartime atrocities.<ref>[http://japanforum.hp.infoseek.co.jp/zheng/04/1122a.htm 我看张纯如《南京大屠杀》]</ref> In addition, Efron noted that geriatric Japanese soldiers have published their memoirs and have been giving speeches and interviews in increasing numbers, recounting the atrocities they committed or witnessed. After years of government-enforced denial, Japanese middle school textbooks now carry accounts of the Nanjing massacre as accepted truth.<ref name=once>{{cite news | title=Once Again, Japan is at war over History | author=Sonni Efron | publisher=[[Los Angeles Times]] | date=June 6, 1999 }}</ref> Fogel also writes: "Dozens of Japanese scholars are now actively engaged in research on every aspect of the war.... Indeed, we know many details of the Nanjing massacre, Japanese sexual exploitation of 'comfort women,' and biological and chemical warfare used in China because of the trailblazing research" of Japanese scholars.<ref name="Fogel" /> |
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The book also received praise from news media. ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' wrote that it was the "first comprehensive examination of the destruction of this Chinese imperial city," and that Chang "skillfully excavated from oblivion the terrible events that took place." ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'' described the book as "a crushing indictment of the Japanese army's behavior." The ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' called it "a powerful new work of history and moral inquiry" and stated that "Chang takes great care to establish an accurate accounting of the dimensions of the violence." ''[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]]'' wrote that it was a "compelling account of a horrendous episode that, until recently, has been largely forgotten."<ref name="MediaPraise">{{cite web |url = http://www.irischang.net/press_article.cfm?n=14 |title = Media Praise For The Rape of Nanking |website = IrisChang.net |access-date=2007-07-21 }}</ref> |
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[[Image:Baoshan1937-Asahi-01.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The original version of a photograph used by Chang—the accuracy of the caption in the book is disputed<ref name="SFGate1998" />]] |
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''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' staff writer Charles Burress wrote that Chang's quote of a secret telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister in 1938 was incorrectly cited as "compelling evidence" that Japanese troops killed at least 300,000 Chinese civilians in Nanjing.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> According to Burress, the figure of 300,000 Chinese civilians killed actually came from a message sent by a British reporter, concerning deaths not only in Nanjing but in other places as well. Additionally, Burress questioned Chang's motivation for writing the book - whether she wrote it as an activist or as a historian, stating that the book "draws its emotional impetus" from her conviction to not let the Nanking Massacre be forgotten by the world.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> Burress also cited [[Ikuhiko Hata]], a Japanese history professor at [[Nihon University]], who argued that 11 photos in the book were misrepresented or fake. One particular photo shows women and children walking across a bridge with Japanese soldiers, and captioned as "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution." Hata stated that the photo originally appeared in 1937 in a Japanese newspaper as part of a series of photos that showed peaceful scenes of Chinese villagers under Japanese occupation.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> |
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According to William C. Kirby, Professor of History at Harvard University, Chang "shows more clearly than any previous account just what [the Japanese] did," and that she "draws connections between the slaughter in Europe and in Asia of millions of innocents during World War II."<ref name="KirbyForward" /> [[Ross Terrill]], an associate in research at the [[Fairbank Center for East Asian Research]] at Harvard,<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/author_detail.jsp?id=1000016300 |title = Ross Terrill |publisher = Basic Books |access-date = 2007-07-21 |archive-date = 2007-09-27 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070927002132/http://www.perseusbooksgroup.com/basic/author_detail.jsp?id=1000016300 |url-status = dead }}</ref> wrote that the book is "scholarly, an exciting investigation and a work of passion."<ref name="Quotes">Quotes on the Jacket and Interior of - {{cite book |author = Iris Chang |title = The Rape of Nanking |publisher=Penguin Books |year=1998 |isbn=0-465-06835-9 |url = https://archive.org/details/rapeofnankingfor00chan }}</ref> Beatrice S. Bartlett, [[Emeritus Professor]] of History at [[Yale University]],<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/bartlett.html |title = Beatrice S. Bartlett |publisher=Yale University |access-date=2007-07-21 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060920012335/http://www.yale.edu/history/faculty/bartlett.html |archive-date = September 20, 2006 }}</ref> wrote, "Iris Chang's research on the Nanking holocaust yields a new and expanded telling of this World War II atrocity and reflects thorough research."<ref name="Quotes" /> [[Frederic Wakeman]], director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], wrote that the book was "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."<ref name="Quotes"/> |
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Chang responded to Charles Burress's criticism in a letter written to the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', but the letter was not published by the newspaper.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vikingphoenix.com/public/rongstad/news/bamr/changletter.htm|title=San Francisco Chronicle refused to publish Iris Chang's rebuttal|publisher=VikingPhoenix.com|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20010305234642/http://www.vikingphoenix.com/public/rongstad/news/bamr/changletter.htm|archivedate=2001-03-05|date=1999-06-18|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> In the letter, she offered criticism of her own concerning Burress's article.<ref name="ChangLetter">{{cite web|url=http://www.irischang.net/press_article.cfm?n=9|title=Iris Chang's Letter to the San Francisco Chronicle|publisher=IrisChang.net|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> Chang found a "disturbing tendency" by Burress to quote right-wing Japanese critics "without demanding evidence to back up their allegations". She argued that Ikuhiko Hata, a source cited by Burress, was not "regarded as a serious scholar" in either Japan or in the U. S., because he was a regular contributor to "ultra right-wing" Japanese publications. One such publication had published an article from a [[Holocaust denial|Holocaust denier]] that argued that no [[gas chamber]]s were used in [[Germany]] to kill [[Jew]]s. This caused the parent publisher to shut down the publication. On Burress's criticism of her inaccurate photo captioning, Chang disputed the contention that the caption was wrong. She wrote that her book dealt with the "horror of the Japanese invasion of China", and that the caption reading "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution" contained two statements of indisputable fact. |
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=== Criticism === |
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Chang also issued a rejoinder to Burress's argument that she incorrectly cited a telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister. She wrote that while the original figure of 300,000 Chinese civilian deaths in Nanjing was reported by a British reporter, this figure was cited in a message that Japan's foreign minister sent to his contacts in [[Washington, DC]]. Chang argued that figure's use by a high-ranking Japanese government official was evidence that the Japanese government recognized 300,000 as the number of Chinese civilian deaths. Finally, she criticized Burress for his "nitpick" of small details in order to draw attention away from the scope and magnitude of the Nanking Massacre, writing that such was a "common tactic" of Holocaust deniers.<ref name="ChangLetter" /> |
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Chang's critics alleged that she made an inappropriate and facile association between mass murder and Japanese culture, which included Japanese martial competitions and [[bushido]]; that her book contained incorrect historical dates and names because of her lack of training as a historian; that her personal feelings were evident in the book, making it lack intellectual rigor; that certain passages of her book were plagiarized; and that she placed an undue amount of attention to the actions of right-wing Japanese politicians and groups who refuse to acknowledge Japan's wartime crimes, while ignoring the contributions made by Japanese historians and groups who are preserving the memory of the massacre.<ref>{{cite journal |last = Kelly |first = Timothy M. |url = https://www1.edogawa-u.ac.jp/~tmkelly/research_review_nanking.html |title = Book Review: The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang |journal = Edogawa Women's Junior College Journal |issue = 15 |date = March 2000 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20010503060120/https://www1.edogawa-u.ac.jp/~tmkelly/research_review_nanking.html |archive-date = 2001-05-03 }}</ref><ref name="Kennedy">{{cite magazine | author=David M. Kennedy | title=The Horror: Should the Japanese atrocities in Nanking be equated with the Nazi Holocaust? | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199804/nanking | magazine=[[The Atlantic Monthly]] | pages=110–116 | volume=281 | issue=4 |date=April 1998 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url = http://chinajapan.org/fogel |title = Joshua A. Fogel |publisher=Sino-Japanese Studies |access-date=2007-07-22 }}</ref><ref name=Jeans>{{cite journal|last=Jeans|first=Roger B.|date=January 2005|title=Victims or Victimizers? Museums, Textbooks, and the War Debate in Contemporary Japan|url=https://www.academia.edu/12268782|journal=The Journal of Military History|publisher=Society for Military History|volume=69|issue=1|pages=149–195|doi=10.1353/jmh.2005.0025|s2cid=159900111}}</ref> |
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Robert Entenmann, professor of history at [[St. Olaf College]], disagreed with her description of the massacre.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/history/faculty/entenmann.html|title=Robert Entenmann|publisher=St. Olaf College|access-date=2007-07-23|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070705141913/http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/history/faculty/entenmann.html|archive-date=2007-07-05}}</ref> Entenmann opined that her explanations on why the massacre occurred were inadequate. Disagreements notwithstanding, he acknowledged that her book will help preserve the memory of the atrocity.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/reviewswc3.htm |title = Book review of ''The Rape of Nanking'' |publisher=University of the West of England |access-date=2007-07-23 |url-status=dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20081211035132/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/reviewswc3.htm |archive-date=2008-12-11 }}</ref> |
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==Reaction in Japan== |
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[[Image:Rape-of-nanking-J-cover.png|thumb|right|200px|Japanese translation of the book, published in December 2007]] |
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''The Rape of Nanking'' has caused controversy in Japan.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070223a5.html|title=LDP-DPJ group plan to scrutinize 'Rape of Nanking'|publisher=The Japan Times|date=2007-02-23|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' staff writer, Sonni Efron, reported that Chang was also criticized by both Japanese "ultranationalists", who believe that the massacre in Nanjing never took place, and Japanese liberals, who "insist the massacre happened but allege that Chang's flawed scholarship damages their cause".<ref name="CHGS">{{cite journal|url=http://chgs.umn.edu/news/v3i1.html#nanjingmassacre|journal=CHGS Newsletter|publisher=University of Minnesota Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies|title=Nanjing Massacre Disputed Again!|year=2000|volume=3|issue=1|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> Associate Professor David Askew of |
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[[Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University]] stated that Chang's work dealt a "severe blow" to the "Great Massacre School" of thought, which advocates for the validity of the findings at the [[Tokyo Trials]], the tribunal convened to try the leaders of the [[Empire of Japan]] for crimes committed during World War II. Askew further argued that "the Great Massacre School has thus been forced into the (unusual) position of criticising a work that argues for a larger death toll."<ref name="Askew">{{cite web|url=http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/Askew.html|title=The Nanjing Incident|publisher=Electronic journal of contemporary Japanese studies|date=2002-04-04|accessdate=2007-07-21}}</ref> |
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Sonni Efron of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' opined that the bitter row over Iris Chang's book may leave Westerners with the misimpression that little has been written in Japan about the Nanjing Massacre, when in fact the [[National Diet Library]] holds at least 42 books about the Nanjing massacre and Japan's wartime misdeeds, 21 of which were written by liberals investigating Japan's wartime atrocities. In addition, Efron noted that geriatric Japanese soldiers have published their memoirs and have been giving speeches and interviews in increasing numbers, recounting the atrocities they committed or witnessed. After years of government-enforced denial, Japanese middle school textbooks now carry accounts of the Nanjing massacre as accepted truth. According to Efron, Japanese liberals alleged that the mistakes found in her book could undermine their endeavors, which include bringing the knowledge of the massacre to the Japanese public and pressuring the Japanese government into apologizing and atoning for the massacre.<ref name=once/> |
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Following the publication of ''The Rape of Nanking'', Japanese critic [[Masaaki Tanaka]] had his 1987 book on Nanking translated into English. Entitled ''What Really Happened in Nanking: The Refutation of a Common Myth'', Tanaka stated in his introduction "I am convinced that [American researchers] will arrive at the realization that violations of international law of the magnitude alleged by Iris Chang in ''The Rape of Nanking'' (more than 300,000 murders and 80,000 rapes) never took place."<ref>{{cite news|title=Critic disputes 'Rape of Nanking' in English translation of '87 work What Really Happened in Nanking--The Refutation of Common Myth |last=Anai|first=Ikuo|date=6 May 2001|publisher=''[[The Daily Yomiuri]]'' (Tokyo)|page= 23}}</ref> |
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[[File:Baoshan1937-Asahi-01.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The original version of a photograph used by Chang—the accuracy of the caption in the book is disputed<ref name="SFGate1998" />]] |
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Chang's book was not published in a translated Japanese language edition until December 2007.<ref>{{cite news | title=「ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京」の日本語版が出版 | url=http://j.people.com.cn/2007/12/17/jp20071217_81293.html | publisher=[[People's Daily]] | date=2007-12-17|accessdate=2007-12-18 | language=Japanese}}</ref><ref>ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京—第二次世界大戦の忘れられたホロコースト. Translated by 巫召鴻. ISBN 4-88683-617-8</ref> Problems with translation efforts surfaced immediately after a contract was signed for the Japanese publishing of the book. A Japanese literary agency informed Chang that several Japanese historians declined to review the translation, and that one professor backed out because of pressure placed on his family from "an unknown organization".<ref name="NewYorkTimes" /> According to Japan scholar Ivan P. Hall,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.japanreview.net/interview_ivan_hall.htm|title=Ivan P. Hall|publisher=Japan Review Net|accessdate=2007-07-22}}</ref> revisionist historians in Japan organized a committee of right-wing scholars to condemn the book with repeated appearances at the [[Foreign Correspondents' Club]] in [[Tokyo]] and throughout Japan. They prevailed on Kashiwa Shobo, the contracted Japanese publisher of the book, to insist that Chang edit the book for "corrections" they wanted made, to delete photographs and alter maps, and to publish a rebuttal to Chang's book. Chang disagreed with the changes and, as a result, withdrew the Japanese publishing of the book.<ref name="Hall">{{cite web|url=http://www.jpri.org/publications/occasionalpapers/op28.html|title=Japan and the U.S.: Sidelining the Heterodox|publisher=Japan Policy Research Institute|year=2002|month=December|accessdate=2007-07-22}}</ref> The rebuttal piece was nonetheless published as a book by [[Nobukatsu Fujioka]] and Shudo Higashinakano entitled ''A Study of 'The Rape of Nanking'''.<ref name="Hall" /><ref name="Higashinakano" /> |
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''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' staff writer Charles Burress wrote that Chang's quote of a secret telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister in 1938 was incorrectly cited as "compelling evidence" that Japanese troops killed at least 300,000 Chinese civilians in Nanjing.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> According to Burress, the figure of 300,000 Chinese civilians killed actually came from a message sent by a British reporter, concerning deaths not only in Nanjing but in other places as well. Additionally, Burress questioned her motivation for writing the book—whether she wrote it as an activist or as a historian, stating that the book "draws its emotional impetus" from her conviction to not let the Nanjing Massacre be forgotten by the world.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> Burress also cited [[Ikuhiko Hata]], a Japanese history professor at [[Nihon University]], who alleged that 11 photos in the book were misrepresented or fake. One particular photo shows women and children walking across a bridge with Japanese soldiers, and captioned as "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution." Hata stated that the photo originally appeared in 1937 in a Japanese newspaper as part of a series of photos that showed peaceful scenes of Chinese villagers under Japanese occupation.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> He alleged that since she did not conduct research in Japan, she incorrectly portrayed Japan's postwar attitudes towards the atrocity.<ref name="SFGate1998" /> |
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Shudo Higashinakano, a professor of intellectual history at [[Asia University (Japan)|Asia University of Japan]], argued in ''[[Sankei Shimbun]]'' that the book was "pure baloney", that there was "no witness of illegal executions or murders", and that "there existed no 'Rape of Nanking' as alleged by the Tokyo Trial."<ref name="Higashinakano">{{cite web|url=http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/nanking4.html|title=California State Assembly Should Indict the Atomic Bomb Droppings on Japan|publisher=Association for Advancement of Unbiased View of History|date=1999-09-05|accessdate=2007-07-22|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20070810191502/http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/e/nanking4.html <!--Added by H3llBot-->|archivedate=2007-08-10}}</ref> He identified 90 historical factual errors in the first 64 pages of the book, some of which were corrected in the 1998 [[Penguin Books]] edition.<ref name="Mistakes">{{cite web|url=http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/nanjing/errors.html|title=Thanks for correcting some mistakes|publisher=Association for Advancement of Unbiased View of History|accessdate=2007-07-22|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20070705013557/http://www.jiyuu-shikan.org/nanjing/errors.html <!--Added by H3llBot-->|archivedate=2007-07-05}}</ref> |
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Chang responded to Burress' criticism in a letter written to the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', but the letter was not published by the newspaper.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://vikingphoenix.com/public/rongstad/news/bamr/changletter.htm |title = San Francisco Chronicle refused to publish Iris Chang's rebuttal |website = VikingPhoenix.com |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20010305234642/http://www.vikingphoenix.com/public/rongstad/news/bamr/changletter.htm |archive-date=2001-03-05 |date=1999-06-18 |access-date=2007-07-21 }}</ref> In the letter, she offered criticism of her own concerning Burress's article. She said Hata is considered as an untrustworthy scholar because of his regular contributions to ultra right-wing Japanese publications such as the [[Bungei Shunju]], a publication that published an article that supported [[Holocaust denial]] and another article that accused her, [[John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation|MacArthur Foundation]] and [[Rupert Murdoch]] of being part of a conspiracy of the [[Chinese Communist Party]].<ref name="ChangLetter"/> In regards to his allegations of her misrepresentation of photos and captions, she wrote that Hata provided insufficient evidence to support his suggestion that the photos proved a peaceful Japanese occupation.<ref name="ChangLetter">{{cite web |url = http://www.irischang.net/press_article.cfm?n=9 |title = Iris Chang's Letter to the San Francisco Chronicle |website = IrisChang.net |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110223070616/http://www.irischang.net/press_article.cfm?n=9 |access-date = 2007-07-21 |archive-date = 2011-02-23 }}</ref> |
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===Chang's death=== |
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[[File:Nanjing massacre footprints of survivors.jpg|thumb|Nanjing massacre [[footprint]]s of survivors]] |
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In reference to the photo that shows women and children walking across a bridge with Japanese soldiers, she wrote: <blockquote>"The Japanese, like the Nazis, relied on deception to make mass executions and mass rapes more manageable. The hapless Chinese men, women and children rounded up by the Japanese were usually kept ignorant about their fate until it was too late to escape. In Nanking, women were guided to "marketplaces" to buy ducks and chicken, only to find platoons of soldiers waiting to rape them. Men were assured of food, shelter and safety by Japanese soldiers, only to be lured to remote areas and used for bayonet practice or decapitation contests."<ref name="ChangLetter"/></blockquote> She wrote that her book dealt with the "horror of the Japanese invasion of China," and that the caption reading "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution" contained two statements of indisputable fact.<ref name="ChangLetter"/> |
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The book was the main source of fame for Iris Chang, who was well respected in China for raising awareness of the Nanking Massacre in the Western world.<ref name="SFGate2004-11-11" /> At the same time, Chang received hate mail, primarily from Japanese [[Nationalism#Ultranationalism|ultranationalists]],<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> threatening notes on her car and believed her phone was tapped. She responded overwhelmingly{{Clarify|date=January 2012}} to any question of the validity of her work. Her mother said the book "made Iris sad". Suffering from [[Clinical depression|depression]], Chang was diagnosed with "brief reactive [[psychosis]]" in August 2004. She began taking medications to stabilize her mood.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> She wrote: <blockquote>''I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me.''<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /></blockquote> Succumbing to her battle with depression, Chang took her own life November 9, 2004.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> A memorial service was held in China by Nanking Massacre survivors coinciding with her funeral in [[Los Altos, California|Los Altos]] [[California]]. The [[Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall|Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre]], a memorial site in Nanjing built to commemorate the victims of the Nanking Massacre,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nj1937.org|title=The memorial hall of the victims in Nanjing massacre by Japanese invaders|accessdate=2007-07-31}}</ref> added a wing dedicated to her in 2005.<ref name="SFGate2004-11-20">{{cite news|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/20/DDGN29TV0G1.DTL|title=Iris Chang's suicide stunned those she tried so hard to help — the survivors of Japan's 'Rape of Nanking'|publisher=SFGate|date=2004-11-20|accessdate=2007-07-21 | first=Kathleen E. | last=McLaughlin}}</ref> |
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Chang also issued a rejoinder to Burress's argument that she incorrectly cited a telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister. She wrote that while the original figure of 300,000 Chinese civilian deaths in Nanjing was reported by a British reporter, this figure was cited in a message that Japan's foreign minister sent to his contacts in [[Washington, DC]]. Chang argued that figure's use by a high-ranking Japanese government official was evidence that the Japanese government recognized 300,000 as the number of Chinese civilian deaths. Finally, she criticized Burress for his "nitpick" of small details in order to draw attention away from the scope and magnitude of the Nanjing Massacre, writing that such was a "common tactic" of Holocaust deniers.<ref name="ChangLetter" /> |
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In the U. S., a Chinese garden in [[Norfolk, Virginia|Norfolk]], [[Virginia]], which contains a memorial to [[Minnie Vautrin]], added a memorial dedicated to Chang, including her as the latest victim of the Nanking Massacre, and drawing parallels between Chang and Vautrin, who also took her own life.<ref name="SFGate2004-11-20" /> Vautrin exhausted herself trying to protect women and children during the Nanking Massacre and subsequently during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, finally suffering a nervous breakdown in 1940. She returned to the US for medical treatment, committing suicide a year later.<ref name="Vautrin" /> |
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In an interview, Chang challenged her critics by saying:<blockquote>"If the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the rest of the Japanese government truly care about historical truth, then they should open all their wartime archives to the rest of the world … They shouldn’t mind inviting an international task force of historians – historians from the U.S., China, Japan, Korea, and other countries – to review all the high-level Japanese records from that era and publish them for general and scholarly consumptions. Trust me, if the newly released archival records disprove any of the facts in my book, I would be the first person to acknowledge this in the next edition of ''The Rape of Nanking''. Moreover, I would help the Japanese government publicize the new facts to the world media and find prestigious publishers in the U.S. to translate the documents into English."<ref name="Alan Rosenbaum"/> </blockquote> |
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==See also== |
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* [[Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre]] |
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* [[City of Life and Death]] |
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* [[Don't Cry, Nanking]] |
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* ''[[Nanking (film)|Nanking]]'' |
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* [[Tokyo Trial (film)]] |
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== |
=== Reaction in Japan === |
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''The Rape of Nanking'' has caused controversy in Japan.<ref>{{cite news |url = http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070223a5.html |title = LDP-DPJ group plan to scrutinize 'Rape of Nanking' |newspaper = The Japan Times |date = 2007-02-23 |access-date = 2007-07-21 }}</ref> In 1999 Fujiwara said that:<blockquote>“A campaign to deny the Nanking massacre itself by presenting the weaknesses of Iris Chang’s book is being developed. The massacre denial groups have been using these kinds of tactics to maintain there was no massacre by presenting the contradictions in testimony quoted or by the use of inappropriate photos. Yet it is impossible to deny the occurrence of the incident itself because of these few mistakes. It is an illogical jump in reasoning to deny that the Nanking massacre ever happened by attacking her book.”<ref name=once/></blockquote> |
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{{Reflist|group=note}} |
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Associate Professor David Askew of [[Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University]] said that Chang's book ignited an interest in Japan about the massacre, increasing the amount of publications about the massacre in Japan. He opined that a unified Japanese view of the massacre doesn't exist because of the internal debates and contentions surrounding the massacre, and that the different views can be categorized into mutually exclusive thought groups. He alleged that some aspects of her book undermined the argument put forth by the "Great Massacre School of thought," which advocates for the validity of the findings at the [[Tokyo Trials]] and concludes that there were at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 rape cases, and is considered to be the most sophisticated and credible thought group in Japan.<ref name="Askew">{{cite journal |url = http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/articles/Askew.html |title = The Nanjing Incident |journal = Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies |date=2002-04-04 |access-date=2007-07-21 }}</ref> |
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In an attempt to prevent her Japanese publisher from releasing a Japanese translation of her book, right-wing Japanese groups threatened and pilloried Chang, her publisher and Japanese historians.<ref name="NewYorkTimes"/><ref name=once/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.japanreview.net/interview_ivan_hall.htm|title=Ivan P. Hall|publisher=Japan Review Net|access-date=2007-07-22|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070811062736/http://japanreview.net/interview_ivan_hall.htm|archive-date=2007-08-11}}</ref><ref name="Hall">{{cite web |url = http://www.jpri.org/publications/occasionalpapers/op28.html |title = Japan and the U.S.: Sidelining the Heterodox |publisher = [[Japan Policy Research Institute]] |date = December 2002 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20040323044212/http://www.jpri.org/publications/occasionalpapers/op28.html |access-date = 2007-07-22 |archive-date = 2004-03-23 }}</ref> A Japanese literary agency informed her that several Japanese historians declined to review the translation; one professor backed out because of pressure placed on his family from "an unknown organization"; and her publisher said he was risking his life by publishing her book.<ref name="NewYorkTimes" /><ref name=once/> According to Japan scholar Ivan P. Hall, revisionist historians in Japan organized a committee of right-wing scholars to condemn the book with repeated appearances at the [[Foreign Correspondents' Club]] in Tokyo and throughout Japan.<ref name="Hall"/> Her Japanese publisher requested her to edit the book for the changes the right-wing Japanese scholars wanted made, which included deleting photographs, altering maps, and publishing a rebuttal to her book.<ref name="Hall"/> According to the email correspondence between Chang and Soni Efron of the Los Angeles Times, Chang defended the veracity of her research.<ref name=once/> She said that she corrected 10 errors, including incorrect dates and misspelled names.<ref name=once/> She rejected the publisher's attempt to annotate about 65 items in the book, stating that the suggested changes were additional details, interpretations or assertions by right-wing critics for which no evidence was provided.<ref name=once/> She wrote, <blockquote>“I can assure you that virtually none of these errors had anything to do with the historical description of the Nanking massacre itself.”<ref name=once/></blockquote> Since the editorial requests were against the publishing contract between Chang and her publisher, she decided to withdraw the Japanese publication of her book and criticized her publisher for capitulating to right-wing threats.<ref name="Hall"/><ref name=once/> A Japanese translation of her book was not published and circulated in Japan until December 2007.<ref>{{cite news |script-title=ja:「ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京」の日本語版が出版 |url=http://j.people.com.cn/2007/12/17/jp20071217_81293.html |newspaper=[[People's Daily]] |date=2007-12-17 |access-date=2007-12-18 |language=ja |archive-date=2007-12-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071221074608/http://j.people.com.cn/2007/12/17/jp20071217_81293.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京—第二次世界大戦の忘れられたホロコースト. Translated by 巫召鴻. {{ISBN|4-88683-617-8}}</ref> |
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== Chang's death == |
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After publishing the book, Chang received hate mail, primarily from Japanese [[Nationalism#Ultranationalism|ultranationalists]],<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> and threatening notes on her car and also believed her phone was tapped. Her mother said the book "made Iris sad". Suffering from [[Clinical depression|depression]], Chang was diagnosed with [[brief reactive psychosis]] in August 2004. She began taking medications to stabilize her mood.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> She wrote: <blockquote>I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /></blockquote> Chang committed suicide on November 9, 2004.<ref name="SFGate2005-04-17" /> A memorial service was held in China by Nanjing Massacre survivors coinciding with her funeral in [[Los Altos, California|Los Altos]], [[California]]. The [[Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall|Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre]], a memorial site in Nanjing built to commemorate the victims of the Nanjing Massacre,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nj1937.org/|title=The memorial hall of the victims in Nanjing massacre by Japanese invaders|access-date=2007-07-31|archive-date=2014-12-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141218042145/http://www.nj1937.org/|url-status=dead}}</ref> added a wing dedicated to her in 2005.<ref name="SFGate2004-11-20">{{cite news|url=http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/20/DDGN29TV0G1.DTL|title=Iris Chang's suicide stunned those she tried so hard to help — the survivors of Japan's 'Rape of Nanking'|publisher=SFGate|date=2004-11-20|access-date=2007-07-21 | first=Kathleen E. | last=McLaughlin}}</ref> |
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In the US, a Chinese garden in [[Norfolk, Virginia|Norfolk]], [[Virginia]], which contains a memorial to [[Minnie Vautrin]], added a memorial dedicated to Chang, including her as the latest victim of the Nanjing Massacre, and drawing parallels between Chang and Vautrin, who also took her own life.<ref name="SFGate2004-11-20" /> Vautrin exhausted herself trying to protect women and children during the Nanjing Massacre and subsequently during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, finally suffering a nervous breakdown in 1940. She returned to the US for medical treatment, committing suicide a year later.<ref name="Vautrin" /> |
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== Editions == |
== Editions == |
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; English |
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* English: {{Cite book|title=The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II|last=Chang|first=Iris|year=1997|isbn=978-0-465-06835-7|pages=290|publisher=Basic Books}} |
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* 1997. {{Cite book |title=The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II |date=21 November 1997|isbn=978-0-465-06835-7 |publisher=Basic Books |url = https://archive.org/details/rapeofnankingfor00chan |url-access=registration}} |
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* 1998. ''[[iarchive:rapeofnanking00iris|The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II]]'', with a foreword by [[William C. Kirby]]. USA: Penguin. {{ISBN|978-0-14-027744-9}}. |
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* French: {{Cite book|title=Le viol de Nankin: 1937 : un des plus grand massacres du XXe siècle|year=2010|publisher=Payot|last=Chang|first=Iris|isbn=978-2-228-90520-6|pages=367}} |
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* Chinese: {{Cite book|title=南京大屠杀|publisher=东方出版社|year=2005|pages=382|translator=马志行, 田怀滨, 崔乃颖|last=张|first=纯如|isbn=978-7-5060-1052-8}} |
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* Japanese: 巫召鴻訳『ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京—第二次世界大戦の忘れられたホロコースト』(同時代社、2007年12月)ISBN 4-88683-617-8 |
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::(Corrected version) 巫召鴻著『「ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京」を読む』(同時代社、2007年12月)ISBN 4886836186 |
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; French |
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==References== |
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* 2010. ''Le viol de Nankin – 1937 : un des plus grands massacres du XXe siècle''. Payot. {{ISBN|978-2-228-90520-6}}. |
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{{Reflist|2}} |
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; Chinese |
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==External links== |
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(under Iris Chang's Chinese name: "Zhang Chunru", {{Lang-zh |s = 张纯如 |labels=no }}) |
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* [http://www.irischang.net/ Iris Chang's official site] |
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* 2005. ''{{Lang-zh |s = 《南京大屠杀》 |labels=no }}'', translated by Ma Zhixing ({{Lang-zh |s=马志行 |labels=no }}), Tian Huaibin ({{Lang-zh |s=田怀滨 |labels=no }}), and Cui Naiying ({{Lang-zh |s=崔乃颖 |labels=no}}). Oriental Publishing House ({{Lang-zh |s = 东方出版社 |labels=no }}). 382 pp. {{ISBN|978-7-5060-1052-8}}. |
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* [http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/12.12.96/cover/china1-9650.html Interview with Iris Chang on ''The Rape of Nanking''], Metroactive (1996-12-12) |
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* 2015. ''{{Lang-zh |s = 《南京大屠杀》 |labels=no }}''. Beijing: [[CITIC Press Group|CITIC Press]]. 308 pp. {{ISBN|9787508653389}}. |
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* [http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/wallstreet/floor/9597/his.html&date=2009-10-26+00:04:40 Once Again, Japan is at war over History] by Sonni Efron, Time Staff Writer (1999-06-06, hosted by GeoCities.com) |
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* [http://web.archive.org/web/20070926232658/http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=a5c77a51584d1ae3a160ab0a1deff467 Iris’s Spirit is Everywhere], AsianWeek.com (archived version from 2006-12-08) |
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* [http://homepage3.nifty.com/kadzuwo/fact/ The Nanking Incident Archives] Fact Finders' Forum — includes analysis of photos. |
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* [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/gergen/february98/chang_2-20.html FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST] ([[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]], February 20, 1998) |
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*[http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/95452-1/Iris+Chang.aspx ''Booknotes'' interview with Chang on ''Rape of Nanking'', January 11, 1998.] |
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; Japanese |
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{{good article}} |
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* 2007. ''{{Lang-ja|『ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京—第二次世界大戦の忘れられたホロコースト』|label=none}}'', {{Lang-ja|巫召鴻訳|label=none}}. Dojinsha. {{ISBN|4-88683-617-8}}. |
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* 2007 (Corrected version). ''{{Lang-ja|『「ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京」を読む』|label=none}}'', {{Lang-ja|巫召鴻著|label=none}}. Dojinsha. {{ISBN|4-88683-618-6}}. |
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== See also == |
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* ''[[Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre]]'' |
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* ''[[City of Life and Death]]'' |
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* ''[[Don't Cry, Nanking]]'' |
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* ''[[Nanking (2007 film)|Nanking]]'' |
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* ''[[The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939–1944]]'' |
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* [[The Tokyo Trial (film)|''The Tokyo Trial'' (film)]] |
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== References == |
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{{Reflist}} |
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== External links == |
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* [http://www.irischang.net/books/index.html Iris Chang's official site] |
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* Excerpt of book: 18 January 2012. "[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/the-nazi-leader-who-in-1937-became-the-oskar-schindler-of-china/251525/ The Nazi Leader Who, in 1937, Became the Oskar Schindler of China]." ''[[The Atlantic]]''. |
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* Efron, Sonni. 6 June 1999. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20010701004912/http://www.geocities.com/wallstreet/floor/9597/his.html Once Again, Japan is at war over History]." [[Geocities.com|''GeoCities.com'']]. |
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* Chang, Y. Y. 8 December 2006. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070926232658/http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=a5c77a51584d1ae3a160ab0a1deff467 Iris’s Spirit is Everywhere]." ''[[AsianWeek.com]]''. |
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* "[https://web.archive.org/web/20041019024336/http://homepage3.nifty.com/kadzuwo/fact/ The Nanking Incident Archives]." ''Fact Finders' Forum'' — includes analysis of photos. |
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=== Interviews with author === |
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* [[David Gergen|Gergen, David]], interviewer. 20 February 1998. "[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/iris-chang-and-the-forgotten-holocaust Iris Chang and the Forgotten Holocaust]" (transcript). ''[[The NewsHour]]''. US: PBS. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120319042021/http://www.pbs.org/newshour/gergen/february98/chang_2-20.html Archived] on 19 March 2012. |
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* [[Brian Lamb|Lamb, Brian]], interviewer. 11 January 1998. "[http://www.booknotes.org/Watch/95452-1/Iris-Chang#:~:text=In%20her%20important%20new%20book,then%20the%20capital%20of%20China. The Rape of Nanking]" (video and transcript). ''[[Booknotes]]''. US: C-Span. [https://www.c-span.org/video/?95452-1/rape-nanking Also available on C-Span]. |
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* Mills, Ami Chen, interviewer. 12 December 1996. "[http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/12.12.96/cover/china1-9650.html Breaking the Silence]." ''[[Metroactive]]''. US: Metro Publishing, Inc. |
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* [[Charlie Rose|Rose, Charlie]], interviewer. 19 May 1998. "[https://charlierose.com/videos/4650 Iris Chang]" (video and transcript). [[Charlie Rose (talk show)|Charlie Rose]]. US: PBS. [https://archive.org/details/Charlie-Rose-1998-05-19 Also available on PBS] |
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[[fr:Le Viol de Nankin]] |
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[[zh:南京暴行:被遗忘的大屠杀]] |
Latest revision as of 17:52, 27 March 2024
Author | Iris Chang |
---|---|
Cover artist | Rick Pracher |
Language | English |
Subject | Nanjing Massacre |
Publisher | Basic Books |
Publication date | 1997 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Pages | 290 (1st edition) |
ISBN | 0-465-06835-9 |
OCLC | 37281852 |
951.04/2 21 | |
LC Class | DS796.N2 C44 1997 |
Website | www.irischang.net/books |
This article is part of the series on the |
Nanjing Massacre |
---|
Japanese war crimes |
Historiography of the Nanjing Massacre |
Films |
Books |
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II is a bestselling 1997 non-fiction book written by Iris Chang about the 1937–1938 Nanjing Massacre — the mass murder and mass rape of Chinese civilians committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It describes the events leading up to the Nanjing Massacre, provides a graphic detail of the war crimes and atrocities committed by Japanese troops, and lambastes the Japanese government for its refusal to rectify the atrocities. It also criticizes the Japanese people for their ignorance about the massacre. It is one of the first major English-language books to introduce the Nanjing Massacre to Western and Eastern readers alike, and has been translated into several languages.[1] The book significantly renewed public interest in Japanese wartime conduct in China, Korea, Southeast Asia (including the Philippines) and the Pacific.[2]
The book received both acclaim and criticism by the public and by academics. It has been praised as a work that "shows more clearly than any previous account" the extent and brutality of the episode,[3] while elements of Chang's analysis of the motivations for the events, Japanese culture, and her calculation of the total numbers killed and raped were criticized as inaccurate because of her lack of training as a historian.[4] Chang's research on the book was credited with the finding of the diaries of John Rabe and Minnie Vautrin, both of whom played important roles in the Nanking Safety Zone, a designated area in Nanjing that protected Chinese civilians during the Nanjing Massacre.[5]
The book prompted AOL executive Ted Leonsis to fund and produce Nanking, a 2007 documentary film about the eponymous massacre.[6]
Background
Inspiration
As a child, Chang was told by her parents that during the Nanjing Massacre, the Japanese "sliced babies not just in half but in thirds and fourths." Her parents had escaped with their families from China to Taiwan and then to the United States after World War II. In the introduction of The Rape of Nanking, she wrote that throughout her childhood, the Nanjing Massacre "remained buried in the back of [her] mind as a metaphor for unspeakable evil." When she searched the local public libraries in her school and found nothing, she wondered why no one had written a book about it.[7]
The subject of the Nanjing Massacre entered Chang's life again almost two decades later when she learned of producers who had completed documentary films about it. One of the producers was Shao Tzuping, who helped produce Magee's Testament, a film that contains footage of the Nanjing Massacre itself, shot by the missionary John Magee.[8] The other producer was Nancy Tong, who, together with Christine Choy, produced and co-directed In The Name of the Emperor,[9] a film containing a series of interviews with Chinese, American, and Japanese citizens.[8] Chang began talking to Shao and Tong, and soon she was connected to a network of activists who felt the need to document and publicize the Nanjing Massacre.[10]: 8–9
In December 1994, she attended a conference on the Nanjing Massacre, held in Cupertino, California, and what she saw and heard at the conference motivated her to write her 1997 book.[11] As she wrote in the book's introduction, while she was at the conference:
I was suddenly in a panic that this terrifying disrespect for death and dying, this reversion in human social evolution, would be reduced to a footnote of history, treated like a harmless glitch in a computer program that might or might not again cause a problem, unless someone forced the world to remember it.[10]: 10
Research
Chang spent two years on research for the book.[5] She found source materials in the US, including diaries, films, and photographs of missionaries, journalists, and military officers who were in Nanjing at the time of the massacre.[10]: 11 Additionally, she traveled to Nanjing to interview survivors of the Nanjing Massacre and to read Chinese accounts and confessions by Japanese army veterans.[12] Also, she incorporated the most recent work on the subject by Chinese and Chinese-American historians by including many disturbing photographs and a myriad of translated documents.[13]
Before publication, the book was reviewed by Rana Mitter and Christian Jessen-Klingenberg of the University of Oxford; Carol Gluck of Columbia University; and William C. Kirby of Harvard University.[14] At the time of writing, the Japanese government classified Japan’s World War 2 archives, making archival records unavailable to investigators.[15]
The diaries
Chang's research led her to make what one San Francisco Chronicle article called "Significant Discoveries" on the subject of the Nanjing Massacre, in the forms of the diaries of two Westerners who were in Nanjing leading efforts to save lives during the Japanese invasion.[5] The diaries documented the events of the Nanjing Massacre from the perspectives of their writers, and provided detailed accounts of atrocities that they saw, as well as information surrounding the circumstances of the Nanking Safety Zone.
One diary was that of John Rabe, a German Nazi Party member who was the leader of the Nanking Safety Zone, a demilitarized zone in Nanjing that Rabe and other Westerners set up to protect Chinese civilians.[16] Rabe's diary is over 800 pages, and contains one of the most detailed accounts of the Nanjing Massacre.[17] Translated into English, it was published in 1998 by Random House as The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe.[18]
The other diary belonged to Minnie Vautrin, the American missionary who saved the lives of about 10,000 women and children when she provided them with shelter in Ginling College.[19] Vautrin's diary recounts her personal experience and feelings on the Nanjing Massacre; in it, an entry reads, "There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today."[20] It was used as source material by Hua-ling Hu for a biography of Vautrin and her role during the Nanjing Massacre, entitled American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin.[21]
Chang dubbed Rabe the "Oskar Schindler of Nanking" and Vautrin the "Anne Frank of Nanking."[22][5]
Contents
The Rape of Nanking is structured into three main parts. The first uses a technique—what Chang calls the "Rashomon perspective"—to narrate the events of the massacre from three different perspectives: that of the Japanese military, the Chinese victims, and of the Westerners who tried to help Chinese civilians. The second part concerns the postwar reaction to the massacre, especially that of the American and European governments. The third part of the book examines the circumstances that, Chang believed, have kept knowledge of the massacre out of public consciousness decades after the war.[10]: 14–15
Atrocities
The book depicted in detail the killing, torture, and rape that occurred during the Nanjing Massacre. Chang listed and described the kinds of torture that were visited upon the residents, including live burials, mutilation, "death by fire," "death by ice," and "death by dogs." Based on the testimony of a survivor of the massacre, Chang also describes a killing contest amongst a group of Japanese soldiers to determine who could kill the fastest.[10]: 83–88 On the rape that occurred during the massacre, Chang wrote that "certainly it was one of the greatest mass rapes in world history." She estimates that the number of women raped ranged from 20,000 to as many as 80,000,[23] and states that women from all classes were raped, including Buddhist nuns.[24] Furthermore, rape occurred in all locations and at all hours,[25] and both very young and very old women were raped.[26] Not even pregnant women were spared, Chang wrote, and that after gang rape, Japanese soldiers "sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out the fetuses for amusement."[27] Not all rape victims were women, according to the book, Chinese men were sodomized and forced to perform repulsive sexual acts.[28] Some were forced to commit incest—fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers their sisters, sons their mothers.[29]
Death toll
Chang wrote of the death toll estimates given by different sources:[10]: 100
- Chinese military specialist Liu Fang-chu proposed a figure of 430,000; officials at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall and the procurator of the District Court of Nanjing in 1946 stated at least 300,000 were killed;
- the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) judges concluded that more than 260,000 people were killed;
- Japanese historian Akira Fujiwara mentioned at least 200,000;
- John Rabe, who "never conducted a systematic count and left Nanking in February," estimated 50,000 to 60,000; and
- Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata argued the number killed was between 38,000 and 42,000.
The book discusses the research of historian Sun Zhaiwei of the Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences. In his 1990 paper, "The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population", Sun estimated the total number of people killed at 377,400. Using Chinese burial records, he calculated that the number of dead exceeded the figure of 227,400. He then added estimates totaling 150,000 given by Japanese Imperial Army Major Ohta Hisao in a confessional report about the Japanese army's disposal efforts of dead bodies, arriving at the sum of 377,400 dead.[10]: 101
Chang wrote that there is "compelling evidence" that the Japanese themselves, at the time, believed that the death toll may have been as high as 300,000. She cited a message that Japan's foreign minister Kōki Hirota relayed to his contacts in Washington, DC in the first month of the massacre on January 17, 1938. The message acknowledged that "not less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians [were] slaughtered, many cases in cold blood."[10]: 103–4
Reception
Acclaim
The Rape of Nanking sold more than half a million copies when it was first published in the US, and according to The New York Times, received general critical acclaim.[30] The book remained on the New York Times' Best Seller list for 10 weeks and sold more than 125,000 copies in four months.[12] Several leading historians said they believe that Chang’s revelation of Japanese wartime crimes and the country’s postwar attempts to cover up and distort history will help raise public awareness of the incident.[31]
Iris Chang became an instant celebrity in the US:[32] she was awarded honorary degrees;[33] invited to give lectures and to discuss the Nanjing Massacre on shows such as Good Morning America, Nightline, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; profiled by The New York Times; and was featured on the cover of Reader's Digest.[11] Moreover, Hillary Clinton invited her to the White House; U.S. historian Stephen Ambrose described her as "maybe the best young historian we've got;"[32] and the Organization of Chinese Americans named her National Woman of the Year.[33] The book's popularity prompted a lengthy book tour, with Chang visiting 65 cities in over a year and a half.[5]
The book also received praise from news media. The Wall Street Journal wrote that it was the "first comprehensive examination of the destruction of this Chinese imperial city," and that Chang "skillfully excavated from oblivion the terrible events that took place." The Atlantic Monthly described the book as "a crushing indictment of the Japanese army's behavior." The Chicago Tribune called it "a powerful new work of history and moral inquiry" and stated that "Chang takes great care to establish an accurate accounting of the dimensions of the violence." The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that it was a "compelling account of a horrendous episode that, until recently, has been largely forgotten."[34]
According to William C. Kirby, Professor of History at Harvard University, Chang "shows more clearly than any previous account just what [the Japanese] did," and that she "draws connections between the slaughter in Europe and in Asia of millions of innocents during World War II."[3] Ross Terrill, an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard,[35] wrote that the book is "scholarly, an exciting investigation and a work of passion."[36] Beatrice S. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of History at Yale University,[37] wrote, "Iris Chang's research on the Nanking holocaust yields a new and expanded telling of this World War II atrocity and reflects thorough research."[36] Frederic Wakeman, director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote that the book was "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."[36]
Criticism
Chang's critics alleged that she made an inappropriate and facile association between mass murder and Japanese culture, which included Japanese martial competitions and bushido; that her book contained incorrect historical dates and names because of her lack of training as a historian; that her personal feelings were evident in the book, making it lack intellectual rigor; that certain passages of her book were plagiarized; and that she placed an undue amount of attention to the actions of right-wing Japanese politicians and groups who refuse to acknowledge Japan's wartime crimes, while ignoring the contributions made by Japanese historians and groups who are preserving the memory of the massacre.[38][39][40][41]
Robert Entenmann, professor of history at St. Olaf College, disagreed with her description of the massacre.[42] Entenmann opined that her explanations on why the massacre occurred were inadequate. Disagreements notwithstanding, he acknowledged that her book will help preserve the memory of the atrocity.[43]
Sonni Efron of the Los Angeles Times opined that the bitter row over Iris Chang's book may leave Westerners with the misimpression that little has been written in Japan about the Nanjing Massacre, when in fact the National Diet Library holds at least 42 books about the Nanjing massacre and Japan's wartime misdeeds, 21 of which were written by liberals investigating Japan's wartime atrocities. In addition, Efron noted that geriatric Japanese soldiers have published their memoirs and have been giving speeches and interviews in increasing numbers, recounting the atrocities they committed or witnessed. After years of government-enforced denial, Japanese middle school textbooks now carry accounts of the Nanjing massacre as accepted truth. According to Efron, Japanese liberals alleged that the mistakes found in her book could undermine their endeavors, which include bringing the knowledge of the massacre to the Japanese public and pressuring the Japanese government into apologizing and atoning for the massacre.[31]
San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Charles Burress wrote that Chang's quote of a secret telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister in 1938 was incorrectly cited as "compelling evidence" that Japanese troops killed at least 300,000 Chinese civilians in Nanjing.[12] According to Burress, the figure of 300,000 Chinese civilians killed actually came from a message sent by a British reporter, concerning deaths not only in Nanjing but in other places as well. Additionally, Burress questioned her motivation for writing the book—whether she wrote it as an activist or as a historian, stating that the book "draws its emotional impetus" from her conviction to not let the Nanjing Massacre be forgotten by the world.[12] Burress also cited Ikuhiko Hata, a Japanese history professor at Nihon University, who alleged that 11 photos in the book were misrepresented or fake. One particular photo shows women and children walking across a bridge with Japanese soldiers, and captioned as "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution." Hata stated that the photo originally appeared in 1937 in a Japanese newspaper as part of a series of photos that showed peaceful scenes of Chinese villagers under Japanese occupation.[12] He alleged that since she did not conduct research in Japan, she incorrectly portrayed Japan's postwar attitudes towards the atrocity.[12]
Chang responded to Burress' criticism in a letter written to the San Francisco Chronicle, but the letter was not published by the newspaper.[44] In the letter, she offered criticism of her own concerning Burress's article. She said Hata is considered as an untrustworthy scholar because of his regular contributions to ultra right-wing Japanese publications such as the Bungei Shunju, a publication that published an article that supported Holocaust denial and another article that accused her, MacArthur Foundation and Rupert Murdoch of being part of a conspiracy of the Chinese Communist Party.[45] In regards to his allegations of her misrepresentation of photos and captions, she wrote that Hata provided insufficient evidence to support his suggestion that the photos proved a peaceful Japanese occupation.[45]
In reference to the photo that shows women and children walking across a bridge with Japanese soldiers, she wrote:
"The Japanese, like the Nazis, relied on deception to make mass executions and mass rapes more manageable. The hapless Chinese men, women and children rounded up by the Japanese were usually kept ignorant about their fate until it was too late to escape. In Nanking, women were guided to "marketplaces" to buy ducks and chicken, only to find platoons of soldiers waiting to rape them. Men were assured of food, shelter and safety by Japanese soldiers, only to be lured to remote areas and used for bayonet practice or decapitation contests."[45]
She wrote that her book dealt with the "horror of the Japanese invasion of China," and that the caption reading "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution" contained two statements of indisputable fact.[45]
Chang also issued a rejoinder to Burress's argument that she incorrectly cited a telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister. She wrote that while the original figure of 300,000 Chinese civilian deaths in Nanjing was reported by a British reporter, this figure was cited in a message that Japan's foreign minister sent to his contacts in Washington, DC. Chang argued that figure's use by a high-ranking Japanese government official was evidence that the Japanese government recognized 300,000 as the number of Chinese civilian deaths. Finally, she criticized Burress for his "nitpick" of small details in order to draw attention away from the scope and magnitude of the Nanjing Massacre, writing that such was a "common tactic" of Holocaust deniers.[45]
In an interview, Chang challenged her critics by saying:
"If the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the rest of the Japanese government truly care about historical truth, then they should open all their wartime archives to the rest of the world … They shouldn’t mind inviting an international task force of historians – historians from the U.S., China, Japan, Korea, and other countries – to review all the high-level Japanese records from that era and publish them for general and scholarly consumptions. Trust me, if the newly released archival records disprove any of the facts in my book, I would be the first person to acknowledge this in the next edition of The Rape of Nanking. Moreover, I would help the Japanese government publicize the new facts to the world media and find prestigious publishers in the U.S. to translate the documents into English."[15]
Reaction in Japan
The Rape of Nanking has caused controversy in Japan.[46] In 1999 Fujiwara said that:
“A campaign to deny the Nanking massacre itself by presenting the weaknesses of Iris Chang’s book is being developed. The massacre denial groups have been using these kinds of tactics to maintain there was no massacre by presenting the contradictions in testimony quoted or by the use of inappropriate photos. Yet it is impossible to deny the occurrence of the incident itself because of these few mistakes. It is an illogical jump in reasoning to deny that the Nanking massacre ever happened by attacking her book.”[31]
Associate Professor David Askew of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University said that Chang's book ignited an interest in Japan about the massacre, increasing the amount of publications about the massacre in Japan. He opined that a unified Japanese view of the massacre doesn't exist because of the internal debates and contentions surrounding the massacre, and that the different views can be categorized into mutually exclusive thought groups. He alleged that some aspects of her book undermined the argument put forth by the "Great Massacre School of thought," which advocates for the validity of the findings at the Tokyo Trials and concludes that there were at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 rape cases, and is considered to be the most sophisticated and credible thought group in Japan.[47]
In an attempt to prevent her Japanese publisher from releasing a Japanese translation of her book, right-wing Japanese groups threatened and pilloried Chang, her publisher and Japanese historians.[30][31][48][49] A Japanese literary agency informed her that several Japanese historians declined to review the translation; one professor backed out because of pressure placed on his family from "an unknown organization"; and her publisher said he was risking his life by publishing her book.[30][31] According to Japan scholar Ivan P. Hall, revisionist historians in Japan organized a committee of right-wing scholars to condemn the book with repeated appearances at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo and throughout Japan.[49] Her Japanese publisher requested her to edit the book for the changes the right-wing Japanese scholars wanted made, which included deleting photographs, altering maps, and publishing a rebuttal to her book.[49] According to the email correspondence between Chang and Soni Efron of the Los Angeles Times, Chang defended the veracity of her research.[31] She said that she corrected 10 errors, including incorrect dates and misspelled names.[31] She rejected the publisher's attempt to annotate about 65 items in the book, stating that the suggested changes were additional details, interpretations or assertions by right-wing critics for which no evidence was provided.[31] She wrote,
“I can assure you that virtually none of these errors had anything to do with the historical description of the Nanking massacre itself.”[31]
Since the editorial requests were against the publishing contract between Chang and her publisher, she decided to withdraw the Japanese publication of her book and criticized her publisher for capitulating to right-wing threats.[49][31] A Japanese translation of her book was not published and circulated in Japan until December 2007.[50][51]
Chang's death
After publishing the book, Chang received hate mail, primarily from Japanese ultranationalists,[5] and threatening notes on her car and also believed her phone was tapped. Her mother said the book "made Iris sad". Suffering from depression, Chang was diagnosed with brief reactive psychosis in August 2004. She began taking medications to stabilize her mood.[5] She wrote:
I can never shake my belief that I was being recruited, and later persecuted, by forces more powerful than I could have imagined. Whether it was the CIA or some other organization I will never know. As long as I am alive, these forces will never stop hounding me.[5]
Chang committed suicide on November 9, 2004.[5] A memorial service was held in China by Nanjing Massacre survivors coinciding with her funeral in Los Altos, California. The Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre, a memorial site in Nanjing built to commemorate the victims of the Nanjing Massacre,[52] added a wing dedicated to her in 2005.[53]
In the US, a Chinese garden in Norfolk, Virginia, which contains a memorial to Minnie Vautrin, added a memorial dedicated to Chang, including her as the latest victim of the Nanjing Massacre, and drawing parallels between Chang and Vautrin, who also took her own life.[53] Vautrin exhausted herself trying to protect women and children during the Nanjing Massacre and subsequently during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, finally suffering a nervous breakdown in 1940. She returned to the US for medical treatment, committing suicide a year later.[19]
Editions
- English
- 1997. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. Basic Books. 21 November 1997. ISBN 978-0-465-06835-7.
- 1998. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, with a foreword by William C. Kirby. USA: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-027744-9.
- French
- 2010. Le viol de Nankin – 1937 : un des plus grands massacres du XXe siècle. Payot. ISBN 978-2-228-90520-6.
- Chinese
(under Iris Chang's Chinese name: "Zhang Chunru", 张纯如)
- 2005. 《南京大屠杀》, translated by Ma Zhixing (马志行), Tian Huaibin (田怀滨), and Cui Naiying (崔乃颖). Oriental Publishing House (东方出版社). 382 pp. ISBN 978-7-5060-1052-8.
- 2015. 《南京大屠杀》. Beijing: CITIC Press. 308 pp. ISBN 9787508653389.
- Japanese
- 2007. 『ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京—第二次世界大戦の忘れられたホロコースト』, 巫召鴻訳. Dojinsha. ISBN 4-88683-617-8.
- 2007 (Corrected version). 『「ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京」を読む』, 巫召鴻著. Dojinsha. ISBN 4-88683-618-6.
See also
- Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre
- City of Life and Death
- Don't Cry, Nanking
- Nanking
- The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939–1944
- The Tokyo Trial (film)
References
- ^ "A Brief Biography of Iris Chang" (PDF). Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WW II in Asia. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-08-05. Retrieved 2007-07-27.
- ^ Edward Drea (2006). Researching Japanese War Crimes Records (PDF). National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Groups. p. 3. ISBN 1-880875-28-4.
- ^ a b Foreword by William C. Kirby, in: Iris Chang (1998). The Rape of Nanking. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-465-06835-9.
- ^ Joshua A. Fogel (August 1998). "Reviewed Works: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang". The Journal of Asian Studies. 57 (3). Association for Asian Studies: 818–820. doi:10.2307/2658758. JSTOR 2658758.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Benson, Heidi (2005-04-17). "Historian Iris Chang won many battles/The war she lost raged within". SFGate. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
- ^ Heath, Thomas (2006-07-31). "Ted Leonsis Takes a Sharp Turn". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
- ^ Iris Chang (1998). The Rape of Nanking. Penguin Books. pp. 7–8. ISBN 0-465-06835-9.
- ^ a b "Proposal for The Nanking Conference at Princeton University" (PDF). Princeton University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-01-10. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
- ^ In the Name of the Emperor at IMDb
- ^ a b c d e f g h Chang, The Rape of Nanking
- ^ a b "The Rape of Nanking". Penguin Group USA. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
- ^ a b c d e f g Burress, Charles (1998-07-26). "Wars of Memory". SFGate. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ Yang Daqing, "Convergence or Divergence? Recent Historical Writings on the Rape of Nanjing", The American Historical Review 104 (1999), p. 7.
- ^ Chang, Iris; The Rape of Nanking; Penguin, London, 1998
- ^ a b Alan S. Rosenbaum (2018). Is the Holocaust Unique?: Perspectives on Comparative Genocide. Routledge. ISBN 9780813344065.
- ^ "Rabe's Records of "The Rape of Nanjing" Discovered". The Chinese University of Hong Kong. 1996-09-26. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
- ^ Malcolm Trevor (2001). Japan: Restless Competitor. Routledge. p. 121. ISBN 1-903350-02-6.
- ^ John Rabe (1998). The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe. Random House. ISBN 0-375-40211-X.
- ^ a b "American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking". Southern Illinois University. Archived from the original on 2007-05-25. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
- ^ "Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanjing". BBC News. 2005-04-11. Retrieved 2007-07-27.
- ^ "An American hero in Nanking". Asia Times. 2002-08-24. Archived from the original on 2002-08-26. Retrieved 2007-07-27.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Chang, Iris. 18 January 2012. "The Nazi Leader Who, in 1937, Became the Oskar Schindler of China." The Atlantic.
- ^ Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 89, citing:
- Catherine Rosair, For One Veteran, Emperor Visit Should Be Atonement;
- George Fitch, Nanking Outrages;
- Li En-han, Questions of How Many Chinese Were Killed by the Japanese Army in the Great Nanking Massacre
- ^ Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 90, citing:
- Hu Hua-ling, Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking;
- ^ Chang, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 90-91, citing:
- George Fitch, Nanking Outrages;
- Gao Xingzu, et al., Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing
- ^ Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 91, citing:
- Hu Hua-ling, Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking;
- David Nelson Sutton, All Military Aggression in China Including Atrocities Against Civilians and Others;
- Shuhsi Hsu, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone
- ^ Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 91, citing:
- "A Debt of Blood," Dagong Daily, 7 February 1938;
- Xinhua Daily, 24 February 1951;
- Hu Hua-ling, Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking;
- Tang Shunsan, interview with Chang;
- Gao Xingzu, et al., Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing
- ^ Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 95, citing:
- Shuhsi Hsu, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone
- ^ Chang, The Rape of Nanking, p. 95, citing:
- Guo Qi, August 1938, "Shendu xueluilu," Xijing Pingbao.
- ^ a b c Carvajal, Doreen (1999-05-20). "History's Shadow Foils Nanking Chronicle". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sonni Efron (June 6, 1999). "War Again Is Raging Over Japan's Role in 'Nanking'". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ a b August, Oliver (2005-03-17). "One final victim of the Rape of Nanking?". Times Online. London. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ a b Burress, Charles (2004-11-11). "Chinese American writer found dead in South Bay". SFGate. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ "Media Praise For The Rape of Nanking". IrisChang.net. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ "Ross Terrill". Basic Books. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ a b c Quotes on the Jacket and Interior of - Iris Chang (1998). The Rape of Nanking. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-465-06835-9.
- ^ "Beatrice S. Bartlett". Yale University. Archived from the original on September 20, 2006. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ Kelly, Timothy M. (March 2000). "Book Review: The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang". Edogawa Women's Junior College Journal (15). Archived from the original on 2001-05-03.
- ^ David M. Kennedy (April 1998). "The Horror: Should the Japanese atrocities in Nanking be equated with the Nazi Holocaust?". The Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 281, no. 4. pp. 110–116.
- ^ "Joshua A. Fogel". Sino-Japanese Studies. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
- ^ Jeans, Roger B. (January 2005). "Victims or Victimizers? Museums, Textbooks, and the War Debate in Contemporary Japan". The Journal of Military History. 69 (1). Society for Military History: 149–195. doi:10.1353/jmh.2005.0025. S2CID 159900111.
- ^ "Robert Entenmann". St. Olaf College. Archived from the original on 2007-07-05. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
- ^ "Book review of The Rape of Nanking". University of the West of England. Archived from the original on 2008-12-11. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
- ^ "San Francisco Chronicle refused to publish Iris Chang's rebuttal". VikingPhoenix.com. 1999-06-18. Archived from the original on 2001-03-05. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ a b c d e "Iris Chang's Letter to the San Francisco Chronicle". IrisChang.net. Archived from the original on 2011-02-23. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ "LDP-DPJ group plan to scrutinize 'Rape of Nanking'". The Japan Times. 2007-02-23. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ "The Nanjing Incident". Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies. 2002-04-04. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
- ^ "Ivan P. Hall". Japan Review Net. Archived from the original on 2007-08-11. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
- ^ a b c d "Japan and the U.S.: Sidelining the Heterodox". Japan Policy Research Institute. December 2002. Archived from the original on 2004-03-23. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
- ^ 「ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京」の日本語版が出版. People's Daily (in Japanese). 2007-12-17. Archived from the original on 2007-12-21. Retrieved 2007-12-18.
- ^ ザ・レイプ・オブ・南京—第二次世界大戦の忘れられたホロコースト. Translated by 巫召鴻. ISBN 4-88683-617-8
- ^ "The memorial hall of the victims in Nanjing massacre by Japanese invaders". Archived from the original on 2014-12-18. Retrieved 2007-07-31.
- ^ a b McLaughlin, Kathleen E. (2004-11-20). "Iris Chang's suicide stunned those she tried so hard to help — the survivors of Japan's 'Rape of Nanking'". SFGate. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
External links
- Iris Chang's official site
- Excerpt of book: 18 January 2012. "The Nazi Leader Who, in 1937, Became the Oskar Schindler of China." The Atlantic.
- Efron, Sonni. 6 June 1999. "Once Again, Japan is at war over History." GeoCities.com.
- Chang, Y. Y. 8 December 2006. "Iris’s Spirit is Everywhere." AsianWeek.com.
- "The Nanking Incident Archives." Fact Finders' Forum — includes analysis of photos.
Interviews with author
- Gergen, David, interviewer. 20 February 1998. "Iris Chang and the Forgotten Holocaust" (transcript). The NewsHour. US: PBS. Archived on 19 March 2012.
- Lamb, Brian, interviewer. 11 January 1998. "The Rape of Nanking" (video and transcript). Booknotes. US: C-Span. Also available on C-Span.
- Mills, Ami Chen, interviewer. 12 December 1996. "Breaking the Silence." Metroactive. US: Metro Publishing, Inc.
- Rose, Charlie, interviewer. 19 May 1998. "Iris Chang" (video and transcript). Charlie Rose. US: PBS. Also available on PBS