Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity

Hi again, Hiromi:
First of all, to Hiromi, I would be most delighted if you should look back at your review on the film, "Spirited Away". With all due respect, I would dare say you were not "totally fluttered" but were "totally flattered" by whoever rated the film as 5 stars. Congratulations on your stupidity! I would suggest you stop discharging your everlasting frustration and illogical persistence and zip yourself just in the maze of your mind. I am a half Japanese, who has been living in Japan for more than 20 years with a 100% Japanese wife even though I was born and brought up in Southern California. From my two dacades' of experiences in Japan, I could say people like Mr. Yamamoto, the infamous author, and Hiromi, the fanatic reviewer, are quite exceptional and isolated in the country, which unfortunately but most likely has made them so aggressive and insistent like a dissatisfied puppy yelping its head off. They might be sticking out at a glance from overseas, however, I would like to assure Americans and Asians living in the US that the majority of Japanese people are terribly sorry from the bottom of their hearts for what Japan did to Asian countries, especially to China and Korea. In addition, they are so ashamed of having had an emperor like Hirohito, who had been constantly quite far from apologetic for his critical responsibilities for the War all his life. I personally think Hirohito should have been hanged or should have committed a suicide immediately after the War was over, just like his German and Italian counterparts.

Most indepth research on the subject:
I am Chinese. The terrible atrocity of Nanking has casted a lasting scar on the Chinese people.If the truth of the happening cna never be acknowledged on all sides, the wound can never get heal.The writer has done a masterful job in gathering research materials from many sources and put them very neatly in historical context.I recommand this book to anyone who is interested in massacre research and other realted topic.

Don't bother with this book... Some more facts:
1. Never ask a Taiwanese about what happened in China. Most Taiwanese liked the Japanese occupation. They were lucky that the armies that occupied Taiwan were friendly. Some units on the mainland were not savages either. My grandfather and uncle met them. Unfortunately, for most of China and Asia, people were not as lucky. 2. The Nationalist army was weak. Too dispersed and corrupt and eventually fighting an internal war with the Communists. They did little to ward off the invaders. They even invited the invaders and served to support the invaders. (Not all units, but enough to be noticed by the people.) 3. Yes, in some cases the Nationalist army did attact, rob, and rape their own people as stated by some witnesses. 4. Counting the number killed by consulting those who performed the burrials? What about those already burried alive or incinerated? Some are still being discovered to this day.

Unreal:
It is unreal that books like this exist. After reading this, I conclude WWII never took place and Jews are just cry babies, and all the people on earth with the exception of myself are alien cloned humanoids functioning like me so I can feel like one. God help sick puppies...

Excuses and Good Scholarship:
Excuses, excuses...This book does try to make excuses for what happened in Nanking which is sad and enough to put many off the book. But of Iris Chans, Fogel et. al's and Tanaka's books on Nanking, this book came across as giving the most balanced portrayal of the facts. For example Yamamoto reviews research that is both damning and apologetic, Chinese and Japanese. I could have done without the chapter on atrocities in history, which attempts to persuade readers that Nanking was 'business-of-war as usual'. But then again this book does go some way towards making the events in Nanking understandable. If one believes the accounts put forward by Iris Chang, then it would seem that the Japanese are indeed a nation of devils quite without parallel in history. From reading the reviews here it would seem that there are a lot of people who do believe in the fundamental malevolence of the Japanese. The two or three recent movies about Nanking also lead the viewer to these sort of conclusions. Yamamoto shines a light what happened and explains how it came about. If he were not Japanese then he might be more damning of the outcome, but in my view Yamamoto presents the facts with enough clarity to allow readers to come to their own decisions. In that respect, this is a scholarly work. I predict, however, that not only will this sort of scholarship be labelled as "revisionism" it will go on to be treated, and perhaps even banned, in the same way as holocaust denial. As Iris Chan style viewpoints stack up against them, the Japanese will either have to distance themselves from their "evil" past (something that as ancestor-respecters, and having a shame based morality they will find very difficult to do) or continue to be labelled as nazism-unrepentant, evil-personified, devils. Read this book before it is taken from library shelves. (I am British, long-term resident of Japan with a Japanese family. I have even taken a Japanese name. Perhaps I am now half devil?)