The Rape of Nanking
The death of Iris Chang, author of The Rape of Nanking (more), came as a shocking news to me, especially considering she died almost a year ago.
I first came across Iris Chang’s book when I was doing research for a topic for my graduate thesis on the Nanking Massacre. I remember emailing her asking for sources of images used in her book on Oct. 16, 2004. Little did I know, in less than a month, she’d commit suicide due to depression. According to Paual Kamen in her eulogy for Iris Chang, Iris was getting very depressed from discoveries she found in her research for another book she was writing about American POWs in Southeast Asia during World War 2.
While much has been written about the Holocausts of the Jewish and Bosian people, little attention has been paid to the Nanking Massacre. Worst yet, nothing has been done about Japan’s official and public denial of the event. But how could they avoid such truth? The atrocities the Japanese committed in Nanking were so terrible that even Nazis couldn’t believe it happened (John Rabe, a Nazi stationed in China at the time, became the “Schindler” of China by rescuing thousands of Chinese from the massacre. Imagine that.)
She was widely credited for bringing the atrocities of the event by the Japanese to the Western World through her best selling book.
An interview on NPR’s All Things Considered with Iris Chang in 1997 can be found here. Her official home page is here.
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November 3rd, 2005 at 10:32 am
With PM Koizumi’s strengthen political base and his recent appointment of right wing nationalist hawks in future leadership positions, the Japanese government will skirt the issue even more.
Sometimes I am just astounded by Japan goverment’s fawning attitude toward the American and their indifference and condescension in dealing with her Asian neighbors.
November 3rd, 2005 at 12:49 pm
now i want to read the book.
November 6th, 2006 at 12:13 am
It’s interesting that you asked for sources of the pictures. I took a class which studied the massacre and noted that the death toll estimates given by Chang are grossly exaggerated, and in fact Rabe’s much more conservative estimates, though still indicative of a great tragedy, are much more reliable. Furthermore, several images used by Chang are confirmed to have NOT been taken at Nanking and have nothing to do with those events. In other words, though Chang has a noble purpose, her academic credibility is next to none. In response to why Japan refuses to come to grips with its history, part of it is likely because accounts like Chang’s, which falsify data and grossly exaggerate the level of atrocity, are what Japan is asked to teach their citizens about its history. Under these circumstances Japan isn’t the only culprit. That being said, I hope Iris Chang has found whatever peace she was seeking, and am saddened to learn about her death.