First published: 1997. With new epilogue.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-299) and index.

In December 1937, one of the most horrific massacres 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-a death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. In this seminal work, Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, resurrects this history and tells the story 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.

Amazingly, the story of this atrocity--one of the worst in world history--continues to be denied by the Japanese government. More than just narrating the details of an orgy of violence, The Rape of Nanking tells the shocking story of the concerted effort during the Cold War on the part of the West and even China to stifle open discussion of the massacre. Drawing on extensive interviews with survivors and documents brought to light for the first time, Iris Chang's classic is the definitive history of this horrifying episode.