Acclaim
The Rape of Nanking sold more than half a million copies when it was first published in the US, and according to The New York Times, received general critical acclaim.[30] The book remained on the New York Times' Best Seller list for 10 weeks and sold more than 125,000 copies in four months.[12] Several leading historians said they believe that Chang’s revelation of Japanese wartime crimes and the country’s postwar attempts to cover up and distort history will help raise public awareness of the incident.[31]
Iris Chang became an instant celebrity in the US:[32] she was awarded honorary degrees;[33] invited to give lectures and to discuss the Nanjing Massacre on shows such as Good Morning America, Nightline, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; profiled by The New York Times; and was featured on the cover of Reader's Digest.[11] Moreover, Hillary Clinton invited her to the White House; U.S. historian Stephen Ambrose described her as "maybe the best young historian we've got;"[32] and the Organization of Chinese Americans named her National Woman of the Year.[33] The book's popularity prompted a lengthy book tour, with Chang visiting 65 cities in over a year and a half.[5]
The book also received praise from news media. The Wall Street Journal wrote that it was the "first comprehensive examination of the destruction of this Chinese imperial city," and that Chang "skillfully excavated from oblivion the terrible events that took place." The Atlantic Monthly described the book as "a crushing indictment of the Japanese army's behavior." The Chicago Tribune called it "a powerful new work of history and moral inquiry" and stated that "Chang takes great care to establish an accurate accounting of the dimensions of the violence." The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that it was a "compelling account of a horrendous episode that, until recently, has been largely forgotten."[34]
According to William C. Kirby, Professor of History at Harvard University, Chang "shows more clearly than any previous account just what [the Japanese] did," and that she "draws connections between the slaughter in Europe and in Asia of millions of innocents during World War II."[3] Ross Terrill, an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard,[35] wrote that the book is "scholarly, an exciting investigation and a work of passion."[36] Beatrice S. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of History at Yale University,[37] wrote, "Iris Chang's research on the Nanking holocaust yields a new and expanded telling of this World War II atrocity and reflects thorough research."[36] Frederic Wakeman, director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote that the book was "Heartbreaking ... An utterly compelling book. The descriptions of the atrocities raise fundamental questions not only about imperial Japanese militarism but the psychology of the torturers, rapists, and murderers."[36]
Criticism
Chang's critics alleged that she made an inappropriate and facile association between mass murder and Japanese culture, which included Japanese martial competitions and bushido; that her book contained incorrect historical dates and names because of her lack of training as a historian; that her personal feelings were evident in the book, making it lack intellectual rigor; that certain passages of her book were plagiarized; and that she placed an undue amount of attention to the actions of right-wing Japanese politicians and groups who refuse to acknowledge Japan's wartime crimes, while ignoring the contributions made by Japanese historians and groups who are preserving the memory of the massacre.[38][39][40][41]
Robert Entenmann, professor of history at St. Olaf College, disagreed with her description of the massacre.[42] Entenmann opined that her explanations on why the massacre occurred were inadequate. Disagreements notwithstanding, he acknowledged that her book will help preserve the memory of the atrocity.[43]
Sonni Efron of the Los Angeles Times opined that the bitter row over Iris Chang's book may leave Westerners with the misimpression that little has been written in Japan about the Nanjing Massacre, when in fact the National Diet Library holds at least 42 books about the Nanjing massacre and Japan's wartime misdeeds, 21 of which were written by liberals investigating Japan's wartime atrocities. In addition, Efron noted that geriatric Japanese soldiers have published their memoirs and have been giving speeches and interviews in increasing numbers, recounting the atrocities they committed or witnessed. After years of government-enforced denial, Japanese middle school textbooks now carry accounts of the Nanjing massacre as accepted truth. According to Efron, Japanese liberals alleged that the mistakes found in her book could undermine their endeavors, which include bringing the knowledge of the massacre to the Japanese public and pressuring the Japanese government into apologizing and atoning for the massacre.[31]
The original version of a photograph used by Chang—the accuracy of the caption in the book is disputed[12]San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Charles Burress wrote that Chang's quote of a secret telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister in 1938 was incorrectly cited as "compelling evidence" that Japanese troops killed at least 300,000 Chinese civilians in Nanjing.[12] According to Burress, the figure of 300,000 Chinese civilians killed actually came from a message sent by a British reporter, concerning deaths not only in Nanjing but in other places as well. Additionally, Burress questioned her motivation for writing the book—whether she wrote it as an activist or as a historian, stating that the book "draws its emotional impetus" from her conviction to not let the Nanjing Massacre be forgotten by the world.[12] Burress also cited Ikuhiko Hata, a Japanese history professor at Nihon University, who alleged that 11 photos in the book were misrepresented or fake. One particular photo shows women and children walking across a bridge with Japanese soldiers, and captioned as "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution." Hata stated that the photo originally appeared in 1937 in a Japanese newspaper as part of a series of photos that showed peaceful scenes of Chinese villagers under Japanese occupation.[12] He alleged that since she did not conduct research in Japan, she incorrectly portrayed Japan's postwar attitudes towards the atrocity.[12]
Chang responded to Burress' criticism in a letter written to the San Francisco Chronicle, but the letter was not published by the newspaper.[44] In the letter, she offered criticism of her own concerning Burress's article. She said Hata is considered as an untrustworthy scholar because of his regular contributions to ultra right-wing Japanese publications such as the Bungei Shunju, a publication that published an article that supported Holocaust denial and another article that accused her, MacArthur Foundation and Rupert Murdoch of being part of a conspiracy of the Chinese Communist Party.[45] In regards to his allegations of her misrepresentation of photos and captions, she wrote that Hata provided insufficient evidence to support his suggestion that the photos proved a peaceful Japanese occupation.[45]
In reference to the photo that shows women and children walking across a bridge with Japanese soldiers, she wrote:
"The Japanese, like the Nazis, relied on deception to make mass executions and mass rapes more manageable. The hapless Chinese men, women and children rounded up by the Japanese were usually kept ignorant about their fate until it was too late to escape. In Nanking, women were guided to "marketplaces" to buy ducks and chicken, only to find platoons of soldiers waiting to rape them. Men were assured of food, shelter and safety by Japanese soldiers, only to be lured to remote areas and used for bayonet practice or decapitation contests."[45]
She wrote that her book dealt with the "horror of the Japanese invasion of China," and that the caption reading "The Japanese rounded up thousands of women. Most were gang-raped or forced into military prostitution" contained two statements of indisputable fact.[45]
Chang also issued a rejoinder to Burress's argument that she incorrectly cited a telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister. She wrote that while the original figure of 300,000 Chinese civilian deaths in Nanjing was reported by a British reporter, this figure was cited in a message that Japan's foreign minister sent to his contacts in Washington, DC. Chang argued that figure's use by a high-ranking Japanese government official was evidence that the Japanese government recognized 300,000 as the number of Chinese civilian deaths. Finally, she criticized Burress for his "nitpick" of small details in order to draw attention away from the scope and magnitude of the Nanjing Massacre, writing that such was a "common tactic" of Holocaust deniers.[45]
In an interview, Chang challenged her critics by saying:
"If the Japanese Foreign Ministry and the rest of the Japanese government truly care about historical truth, then they should open all their wartime archives to the rest of the world … They shouldn’t mind inviting an international task force of historians – historians from the U.S., China, Japan, Korea, and other countries – to review all the high-level Japanese records from that era and publish them for general and scholarly consumptions. Trust me, if the newly released archival records disprove any of the facts in my book, I would be the first person to acknowledge this in the next edition of The Rape of Nanking. Moreover, I would help the Japanese government publicize the new facts to the world media and find prestigious publishers in the U.S. to translate the documents into English."[15]
Reaction in Japan
The Rape of Nanking has caused controversy in Japan.[46] In 1999 Fujiwara said that:
“A campaign to deny the Nanking massacre itself by presenting the weaknesses of Iris Chang’s book is being developed. The massacre denial groups have been using these kinds of tactics to maintain there was no massacre by presenting the contradictions in testimony quoted or by the use of inappropriate photos. Yet it is impossible to deny the occurrence of the incident itself because of these few mistakes. It is an illogical jump in reasoning to deny that the Nanking massacre ever happened by attacking her book.”[31]
Associate Professor David Askew of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University said that Chang's book ignited an interest in Japan about the massacre, increasing the amount of publications about the massacre in Japan. He opined that a unified Japanese view of the massacre doesn't exist because of the internal debates and contentions surrounding the massacre, and that the different views can be categorized into mutually exclusive thought groups. He alleged that some aspects of her book undermined the argument put forth by the "Great Massacre School of thought," which advocates for the validity of the findings at the Tokyo Trials and concludes that there were at least 200,000 casualties and at least 20,000 rape cases, and is considered to be the most sophisticated and credible thought group in Japan.[47]
In an attempt to prevent her Japanese publisher from releasing a Japanese translation of her book, right-wing Japanese groups threatened and pilloried Chang, her publisher and Japanese historians.[30][31][48][49] A Japanese literary agency informed her that several Japanese historians declined to review the translation; one professor backed out because of pressure placed on his family from "an unknown organization"; and her publisher said he was risking his life by publishing her book.[30][31] According to Japan scholar Ivan P. Hall, revisionist historians in Japan organized a committee of right-wing scholars to condemn the book with repeated appearances at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo and throughout Japan.[49] Her Japanese publisher requested her to edit the book for the changes the right-wing Japanese scholars wanted made, which included deleting photographs, altering maps, and publishing a rebuttal to her book.[49] According to the email correspondence between Chang and Soni Efron of the Los Angeles Times, Chang defended the veracity of her research.[31] She said that she corrected 10 errors, including incorrect dates and misspelled names.[31] She rejected the publisher's attempt to annotate about 65 items in the book, stating that the suggested changes were additional details, interpretations or assertions by right-wing critics for which no evidence was provided.[31] She wrote,
“I can assure you that virtually none of these errors had anything to do with the historical description of the Nanking massacre itself.”[31]
Since the editorial requests were against the publishing contract between Chang and her publisher, she decided to withdraw the Japanese publication of her book and criticized her publisher for capitulating to right-wing threats.[49][31] A Japanese translation of her book was not published and circulated in Japan until December 2007.[50][51]
