Introduction Summary and Analysis

The author begins by noting there are few atrocities that have occurred that match the scale of the rape of Nanking. She notes that while much of the world sees the beginnings of the war from different dates, only Asians see the war as beginning with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. While many horrors certainly happened during the next fourteen years of domination by Japan, only those at Nanking have been documented and it is this documentation that forms the information provided in the novel. No one disputes the details of the attack on Nanking other than the Japanese, whom Chang states have never admitted their crimes nor paid restitution.

According to the International Tribunal of the Far East (IMTFE), over 260,000 noncombatants perished at the hands of the Japanese army by way of torture, rape, mass murder, and other horrors...