Product Description

Drawing on English, Chinese and Japanese sources, this study challenges the prevailing view that the Rape of Nanking was a deliberate, planned effort on the part of the Japanese military. It concludes that it was instead an unfortunate tragedy of conventional warfare.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1346335 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Review
"The historical landscape is undergoing a curious change. A new genre has sprouted, [taking] the form of short books on dramatic events they focus on an incident, relate it as a story, and then follow its repercussions through the social order....They pose dizzying questions: How can we know what actually happened? Where is the truth to be found among competing interpretations? Many of the incidents concern the blackest aspects of the twentieth century. The massacre of defenseless civilians during their occupation of Nanking illustrates this tendency....Nanking: The Anatomy of an Atrocity by Masahiro Yamamoto shows how the debate about [these] events has continued to reverberate through Japanese society. Yamamoto attempted to arrive at an accurate assessment of the scale of the massacre....That estimate discredited revisionists, who claimed that virtually no atrocities had occurred, but it fell far short of the more standard view."-The New York Review of Books

Customer Reviews

Fiction is the foundation of this book
Unlike the title suggested, this book is unfortunately based on fiction rather than fact. A misleading title created by the author who consciously (or unconsciously - if one tries to be fair and objective) presents the fictional facts in a twisted manner. Although it claims to be fair, the attitude of the book fails to engage readers' trust on the subject. Without proper reflection of their conducts based on real facts during the WWII, some Japanese will always live in lies and illusions which would only make their sense of wrong and guilt more unbearable no matter how much they deny it.

Cover-up and denial would convince the reader and the world.

The author should at least try to be honesty, otherwise nobody wants to buy your book except those who choose to let their minds be led by an unsound mind.

No matter what, Japanes killed
I am happy that in a book written by Japanese, there is some fact and basically no one denies that they killed tons of people during WWII, as their government is doing now.

I can understand that they want the international society to accept them, and so try to laundry themselves from the crimes in Nanking by claiming that the tragedy in Nanking was an "accident". But I don't agree with them; and I don't think such attitude will help them.

Simple truth: You can't kill every Chinese, not to mention everyone in this world. So the more you deny, the more we hate you, and the more we want to...

hmmmmmmmmmm.......
Interesting stuff. provocative
I am not of Oriental Origin, but from my own unearthing of events in Nanking 1937... I must say

" HOW DARE JAPAN DENY THE TRUTH" ...
This book is a propagation of excuses with some facts........
I often wonder what relationship the author has with the Japanese Government. An author must be impartial and objective. From what actually DID happen in Nanking 1937... Japan deserved the A- bomb. This book opens up old wounds with the Chinese..( I imagine).
I have read similar propaganda or lies from other wars.. I often wonder what makes people deny a crime which has overwhelming evidence.
people should read IRIS CHAINGS version...