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

by Honda Katsuichi, Frank B. Gibney, Katsuichi Honda, et al.

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765603349
• ISBN13: 9780765603340
• Release Date: September 1998
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 332 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.3" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Detractors Blinded by Hate

This is one of several books detailing the atrocities Japan committed in China during WWII, atrocities the Japanese and their government have yet to face up to in a mature and honest manner. I suppose, for Japan, it's a matter of losing face, and if that's so, Japan has a lot face to lose. Those who deny the Nanjing butchery are so blinded by their hate of communism that any truth exposed by anyone who even minutely appears to support China's view is instantly shrugged off as a lie(s). The bottom line is, the Nanjing Massacre and other Japanese atrocities are about as untrue as the existence of the Comfort Women (Chinese and Korean women kidnapped by Japanese soldiers so as to whore themelves among the Japanese military), and the Bataan Death March where so many American and British military and civilians were murdered along the long walk to Japanese POW camps, none of which Japan has yet to come to terms with either. In fact, the Japanese government even refuses to discuss the Comfort Women. Those who deny Japan's responsibilty are the same kind we in the west refer to as revisionists when they say the Holocaust never happened. They're not revisionsists; they're liars. A few of the reviews of this book are so full of philosophical and political claptrap that it reminds one of a cheap hamburger loaded with filler. Unfortunatley, the burger is so full of God-knows-what that instead of pleasing the customer with its juicy full rounded appearance, one distasteful bite and you instantly realize you're about to throw up.

A must-read for all with interest in the Nanking massacre

Honda Katsuichi has written what may possibly be the most brutally important book yet published in English on the truth about the Nanjing massacre, something which he conceived as an investigative journalist after interviewing tens of victims on his journey to China. It's a factual, highly authentic account of eyewitnesses' interviews after Katsuichi traces out en route batches of living victims which has survived those terrible times. Back in Japan, its Japanese original version was one of the few publications which forced academic recognition that the Nanjing massacre is no longer something which could be swept under carpet. I wonder why some Japanese reviewers still strenuously refused to admit the truth of the matter, a thing which is even in Japan no longer denied. Are they really so uninformed by the Japanese mainstream history academia, or is it really something else? Taking one misleading example of the "truth" as reported by a previous reviewer, Hiromi, China has always tended to downplay the massacre in Mao's time, not to up-play it. One wonders how "anti-Japanese" Honda is; what he has done is merely to uncover the truth, and the accusation is the equivalent of branding a German who admits to the Holocaust as an "anti-German". This book is certainly even more credible and better-written than Iris Chang's Rape of Nanking, since it is written by a Japanese for the Japanese themselves.

Excellent

The author has presented a strong work in an objective manner, unlike Iris Chang in her recent book. The objectivity and Mr. Honda's lack of finger-pointing somehow actually makes the condemnation of the Japanese Army even more forceful. A great read of all.

Great work by a Japanese Journalist.

This is the perfect translation of 'Nankin e no Michi'(The Road to Nanjing) written by Honda Katsuichi. Nanjing Massacre was not an accidental incident. The atrocities in China by Japanese soldiers began in Shanghai and resulted in the massacre in Nanjing. The author traces back the incident by detailed interviews with survivors, documents, diaries of Japanese soldiers and photographs. He doesn't argue about the numbers of victims, but why and how it occurred in the period. Appendix is also great.It consists of some significant victim interviews, quote from diaries and reminiscences of Japanese soldiers which are excerpts from other Honda's works. I'm sure this book will never disappoint the readers who really want to know the facts on Nanjing Massacre.