The New York Times bestselling account of one of history' s most brutal—and
forgotten—massacres when the Japanese army destroyed China' s capital city on the eve of
World War II “Chang vividly methodically records what happened piecing together the
abundant eyewitness reports into an undeniable tapestry of horror.” —Adam Hochschild Salon
In December 1937 the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within weeks more
than 300 000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped tortured and murdered—a
death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Historian
Iris Chang tells the story from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers that of the
Chinese and that of a group of Westerners who refused to abandon the city and created a safety
zone that saved almost 300 000 Chinese. More than just narrating the details of an orgy of
violence in The Rape of Nanking Chang analyzes the militaristic culture that fostered in the
Japanese soldiers a total disregard for human life. It also tells of the concerted effort
during the Cold War on the part of the West and even China to stifle open discussion of this
atrocity. Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors and documents brought to light for the
first time Iris Chang’s classic is the definitive history of this horrifying episode.
