The Rape of Nanking (book)

The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (ISBN 0-465-06835-9) is a 1997 book by Iris Chang which presents a history of the 1937-1938 Nanjing Massacre. This book is by no means the authoritative book on the subject; however, according to William C. Kirby who was a Professor of History at Harvard University, "Ms. Chang shows more clearly than any previous account just what (the Japanese) did." It is one of the first major books to introduce the Nanjing Massacre to Western and Eastern audiences alike as it has been published in several languages.

Debate

As to be expected from a subject of high sensitivity, Chang's book has provoked widespread response from readers and critics alike.

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Some US and Japanese scholars have disputed the accuracy of the book, claiming it contains many serious factual errors. Critic Timothy M. Kelly says a "lack of attention to detail" calls the book's credibility into question and presents a case that Chang plagiarised passages and an illustration from Japan's Imperial Conspiracy by David Bergamini. http://www.edogawa-u.ac.jp/~tmkelly/research_review_nanking.html Robert Grey has argued that that "some of the best scholarly research on the Rape of Nanking has been done in Japan by dedicated Japanese scholars", http://www.aasianst.org/Viewpoints/gan.htm in contrast to Chang's view that Japanese scholars are too afraid of the subject to deal with it.

Related Topics:
US - Japanese

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In Japan, while much of the criticism came from right-wing nationalists, Chang was also attacked by "liberals, who insist happened but allege that Chang's flawed scholarship damages their cause." (Los Angeles Times, June 6 1999).

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Chang responded to criticisms of the book in a 1998 letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, in which she said there was no evidence that photographs in the book had been fabricated; that the photographs were properly captioned; that the Japanese Foreign Minister at the time, Koki Hirota, had given a figure of 300,000 civilians killed; and that her critics in Japan were right-wingers who denied the existence of the massacre and, in some cases, of the Holocaust http://vikingphoenix.com/public/rongstad/news/bamr/changletter.htm.

Related Topics:
San Francisco Chronicle - Koki Hirota - The Holocaust

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The Japanese translation was halted following disagreement between Chang and Kashiwa Shobo, the publisher. As a result of the controversy and evidentiary disputes surrounding the book, Kashiwa Shobo had planned to publish a critical commentary about some factual errors in the same volume.

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