"Meticulously researched…A gripping account that holds the reader's attention from beginning to end." --Nien Cheng, author of Life and Death in Shanghai

 Anyone interested in the relation between war, self-righteousness, and the human spirit will find The Rape of Nanking of fundamental importance. It is scholarly,an exciting investigation, and a work of passion. In places it is almost unbearable to read, but it should be read--only if the past is understood can the future be navigated.

 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. Using extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, Iris Chang has written the definitive history of this horrifying episode.

 The Rape of Nanking 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 which saved almost 300,000 Chinese. Among the heroes was the German John Rabe, a Nazi, whose diaries Chang discovered and whom she calls the "Oskar Schindler of China." More than just narrating the details of an orgy of violence, The Rape of Nanking 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.

Foreword by William C. Kirby

Introduction

PART I

1 The Path to Nanking

2 Six Weeks of Terror

3 The Fall of Nanking

4 Six Weeks of Horror

5 The Nanking Safety Zone

PART II

6 What the World Knew

7 The Occupation of Nanking

8 Judgment Day

9 The Fate of the Survivors

PART III

10 The Forgotten Holocaust:A Second Rape

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index