The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan's National Shame


Book Description

This book is based on four visits to China between 1971 and 1989 by Honda Katsuichi, an investigative journalist for Asahi Shimbun. His aim is to show in pitiless detail the horrors of the Japanese Army's seizure and capture of Nanjing in December 1937. Unvarnished accounts of the testimony - Chinese victims and Japanese perpetrators - to the rape and slaughter are juxtaposed with public relations announcements of the Japanese Army as printed in various Japanese newspapers of the time. The bland announcements of triumphant victories stand in bitter contrast to the atrocities that actually took place on the scene. The story unfolds with horrible detail as we watch the triumphant progress of the Japanese army whose troops were bent on rape and killing in the so-called "heat of battle." Yet by recalling the testimony of Japanese soldiers and reporters who were on the scene, as well as reproducing dispatches by Japanese Army authorities at the time, Honda makes it clear that the atrocities were part of a studied effort directed by the Japanese high command to impress the Chinese people with the power of its army and the folly of resistance to it - the estimate of 300,000 killed in these "military operations" is no exaggeratoin. Honda has worked with other Japanese journalists and scholars who have attempted to reveal the truth of the Nanjing massacre, provoked by the efforts of right-wing Japanese, including, sadly, many government officials, to whitewash the whole incident, even to the point of contending that a "massacre" never happened. This gripping account of the atrocities and cover-up joins other exposes - Chinese and now German - in keeping alive the memory of this shameful event.




The Nanjing Massacre


Book Description

Honda, an investigative journalist for Asahi Shimbun, shows in pitiless detail the horrors of the Japanese Army's march to and seizure and capture of Nanjing in December 1937. Unvarnished accounts of the testimony -- of Chinese victims and Japanese perpetrators -- to the rape and slaughter are juxtaposed with public relations announcements of the Japanese Army as printed in various Japanese newspapers of the time. By recalling the testimony of Japanese soldiers and reporters who were on the scene, as well as reproducing dispatches by Japanese Army authorities at the time, Honda makes it clear that the atrocities were part of a studied effort directed by the Japanese high command to impress the Chinese people with the power of its army and the folly of resistance.




The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography


Book Description

A compelling historiographic study of the Rape of Nanjing during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, one of the worst atrocities of all times, and of the event's repercussions.




The Making of the "Rape of Nanking"


Book Description

Examines how the views of the so-called Rape of Nanking, or the Nanking Massacre, have evolved in history writing and public memory in Japan, China, and the United States, from 1937.




The Rape of Nanking


Book Description

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, "piecing together the abundant eyewitness reports into an undeniable tapestry of horror". (Adam Hochschild, Salon) In December 1937, one of the most horrific atrocities in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (what was then the capital of China), and within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered. In this seminal work, Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, tells this history 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. Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors and documents brought to light for the first time, Iris Chang's classic book is the definitive history of this horrifying episode.




From Kung Fu to Hip Hop


Book Description

From Kung Fu to Hip Hop looks at the revolutionary potential of popular culture in the sociohistorical context of globalization. Author M. T. Kato examines Bruce Lee's movies, the countercultural aesthetics of Jimi Hendrix, and the autonomy of the hip hop nation to reveal the emerging revolutionary paradigm in popular culture. The analysis is contextualized in a discussion of social movements from the popular struggle against neoimperialism in Asia, to the antiglobalization movements in the Third World, and to the global popular alliances for the reconstruction of an alternative world. Kato presents popular cultural revolution as a mirror image of decolonization struggles in an era of globalization, where progressive artistic expressions are aligned with new modes of subjectivity and collective identity.




Never Forget National Humiliation


Book Description

How could the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) not only survive but even thrive, regaining the support of many Chinese citizens after the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989? Why has popular sentiment turned toward anti-Western nationalism despite the anti-dictatorship democratic movements of the 1980s? And why has China been more assertive toward the United States and Japan in foreign policy but relatively conciliatory toward smaller countries in conflict? Offering an explanation for these unexpected trends, Zheng Wang follows the Communist governmentÕs ideological reeducation of the public, which relentlessly portrays China as the victim of foreign imperialist bullying during Òone hundred years of humiliation.Ó By concentrating on the telling and teaching of history in todayÕs China, Wang illuminates the thinking of the young patriots who will lead this rising power in the twenty-first century. Wang visits ChinaÕs primary schools and memory sites and reads its history textbooks, arguing that ChinaÕs rise should not be viewed through a single lens, such as economics or military growth, but from a more comprehensive perspective that takes national identity and domestic discourse into account. Since it is the prime raw material for constructing ChinaÕs national identity, historical memory is the key to unlocking the inner mystery of the Chinese. From this vantage point, Wang tracks the CCPÕs use of history education to glorify the party, reestablish its legitimacy, consolidate national identity, and justify one-party rule in the post-Tiananmen and postÐCold War era. The institutionalization of this manipulated historical consciousness now directs political discourse and foreign policy, and Wang demonstrates its important role in ChinaÕs rise.




Eyewitnesses to Massacre


Book Description

This text is a first-hand testimony of the Nanjing Massacre. It contains eyewitness accounts by a group of nine men and one woman - dedicated, compassionate, well-educated, articulate and devout missionaries - who were there on the scene, and refused to leave.




Five Gentlemen of Japan


Book Description

A newspaperman, an ex-Navy vice-admiral, a steel worker, a farmer, and the 124th Emperor of Japan himself--these are the fascinating heroes of Gibney's brilliant book about modern Japan. Strongly individual, every one of them, the five yet share the common inheritance of Japan's precocious but unstable past. Through their lives and attitudes, Gibney gives us an invaluable analysis of this new sovereign nation so suddenly thrown into the world's power conflicts. He helps us understand the historical and social forces which make Japan what she is today--the old contracts and loyalties from which each of the Five Gentlemen is struggling to break away from his country. Their courageous efforts to weld a new Japan from the remains of the old society, and to come to terms with the present, are as exciting as it is important.




Global Lynching and Collective Violence


Book Description

Often considered peculiarly American, lynching in fact takes place around the world. In the first book of a two-volume study, Michael J. Pfeifer collects essays that look at lynching and related forms of collective violence in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Understanding lynching as a transnational phenomenon rooted in political and cultural flux, the writers probe important issues from Indonesia--where a long history of public violence now twines with the Internet--to South Africa, with its notorious history of necklacing. Other scholars examine lynching in medieval Nepal, the epidemic of summary executions in late Qing-era China, the merging of state-sponsored and local collective violence during the Nanking Massacre, and the ways public anger and lynching in India relate to identity, autonomy, and territory. Contributors: Laurens Bakker, Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, Nandana Dutta, Weiting Guo, Or Honig, Frank Jacob, Michael J. Pfeifer, Yogesh Raj, and Nicholas Rush Smith.