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The Rape of Nanking (book)

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The Rape of Nanking is a 1997 book by Iris Chang (張純如) and William C. Kirby, which presents a history of the 1937-1938 Nanjing Massacre. The book is the most popular work on this particular topic outside of academia in the English speaking world, and oftentimes the first to introduce the Nanjing Massacre to the non-academic audience. The book help to revitalise the interest in the war time atrocities committed by Japan during the World War II.

However, there are numerous problems with factual accuracy with the book, which included the use of fabricated photograph and incorrect description of some elelemtary facts about Japanese and Chinese history. This has been pointed out by both US and Japanese scholars. In Japan, the denail side use the poor research standard of the book to imply that the entire allegation of Naking Massacre is propaganda and therefore false. Some perceived tone of Japan bashing in the book was also noted as book often link the masscre to Japananese culture. The Japanese advocacy of Naking Massacre issue argue that just because this particular book is false does not mean the massacre itself is false. The book is largely ignored in the academic circles.

The Japanese translation was halted because of disagreement between Chang and Kashiwa shobo, the publisher. As a result of factual inaccuracies, Kashiwa shobo had planned to publish supplementary book about factual errors in the same volume which she objected. Penguin paper back version of the books has largely corrected the inaccuracies which has been pointed out.

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