furies's review
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
by Iris Chang
furies's review
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang
furies's review
rating:
bookshelves:
history-memory,
modern-euro-history,
would-never-rec,
wwii
this book is what it is - which is shoddy, shoddy history.
it is, however, excellent memory.
(ahh, see how compelling this distinction can be??)
chang is a journalist, but she doesn't seem to be one in this book, as she blindly does what she accuses the japanese of doing - which is fabricating a false reality.
no matter what chang said, the captions on the pictures were mislabeled. the japanese historians - by which i mean, historians focused on japan - resoundingly pointed out errors in the book. she went ahead anyway. the numbers she uses are subject to debate, even the title of her book is subject to question (it's called the "massacre at nanjing" in china, and the "nanjing incident" in japan). it's sensationalistic, and based mostly on oral history - chang is not fluent in any form in japanese, therefore, all her first account materials had to be sifted through another source.
(i know because carol gluck was one of the people chang asked to h...more
it is, however, excellent memory.
(ahh, see how compelling this distinction can be??)
chang is a journalist, but she doesn't seem to be one in this book, as she blindly does what she accuses the japanese of doing - which is fabricating a false reality.
no matter what chang said, the captions on the pictures were mislabeled. the japanese historians - by which i mean, historians focused on japan - resoundingly pointed out errors in the book. she went ahead anyway. the numbers she uses are subject to debate, even the title of her book is subject to question (it's called the "massacre at nanjing" in china, and the "nanjing incident" in japan). it's sensationalistic, and based mostly on oral history - chang is not fluent in any form in japanese, therefore, all her first account materials had to be sifted through another source.
(i know because carol gluck was one of the people chang asked to h...more
