After all the hype, I found this book to be a bit disappointing. It was a bestseller, largely I suspect because it blew the English-language lid off a major Japanese WWII atrocity. The book isn't long -- about 220 pages -- nor does it have much to say about the Rape of Nanking itself, an awful, brutal rampage in which the Japanese army ran amok in the captured city, looting, burning, torturing, and killing over 300,000 (over 400,000?) civilians and disarmed combatants alike and raping (and otherwise torturing and/or killing) any post-pubescent female they could find. Though nearly half of the book is spent on narrating the horrific events of the Rape from the perspectives of the Japanese, the Chinese, and foreign nationals ("These courageous men and women created the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. This is their story." - p. 106), little of this attempts to raise it from the level of metaphoric abstraction ("Few could predict that within months war would march by their very doorsteps -- leaving their homes in flames and their streets drenched with blood." - p. 64) and is told in much the same language as my review.

Individual horrors are mentioned in passing in a way that minimizes their outrage. The extent of the destruction is addressed largely clinically, as in a six-page-long passage ("The Death Toll," at p. 99) which academically contrasts various published estimates of the victim count. Without sensationalizing, this book could have used better chronological narrative to make these unthinkable events comprehensible (see "Bloody Williamson: A Chapter in American Lawlessness" by Paul M. Angle for a fantastic example of how troubled history can be brought to vivid life). Those seeking a gripping, first-hand account of Nanking will probably want to read "The Good German of Nanking: the Diaries of John Rabe" (a work that "Rape" author Iris Chang helped to unearth and for whose discovery and publication she can take partial responsibility).

This is not to say the book is without merit. It is a terrific introduction to a neglected and important piece of history and the conclusion of the book, which examines the attempted suppression of information about the event and analyzes the psychology of the historic cover-up, is fascinating. It is curious that the author does not bring the same realpolitik insight on how the community of nations can turn their backs on an event like this to bear on more contemporary atrocities. In any case, her closing point about the tragic ease with which humanity's thin veneer of civilized behavior is stripped away is ominous and chilling. It echoes Jared Diamond's "Collapse" thesis as an unrelenting scream of terror.