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Title: Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing (Studies of the East Asian Institute.) by Feifei Li, Robert Sabella, David Liu, Perry Link ISBN: 0-7656-0817-0 Publisher: M.E.Sharpe Pub. Date: February, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Recommended for scholarly reading
Comment: This book is an outgrowth of the Princeton University Nanking 1937 Conference, held in November, 1997.
Having been published in 2001, this book is, however, a little out of date. Because, in Japan, the argument on this somehow emotion-stirring issue have evolved mainly on the side of so-called gHitei-ha", which literally means gdenials faction" since the conference was held. Maybe it is just reflecting the reality that even though the Nanking Massacre was widely thought to be true, in fact, the opponent's (i.e. the people who say the Massacre really happened) arguments against the denials have been proved unsuccessful.
In this book, Higashinakano Shudo ofethe Overall Picture of the gNanking Massacrehfis the only one gHitei-ha" in the contributors. Yet, his argument is powerful and secure with solid hard evidences that actually can debunk the rest of the contents. Others still stick with so-called geyewitnesses" that Higashinakano has already debunked.
So, I would give 5 stars for the Higashinakano paper, but had to reduce to 4 stars because other resarchers do not seem to have respond to Higashinakano's argument seriously. Like many other people who determined not to accept any refutation from Japan, they just ignored it. Instead of building up a counterargument, they just put labels as revisionists or ultra-nationalists on gHitei-ha". I think that is not very professional or scholarly, either.
However, I am still hopeful because as it is said in this book, the audience of the conference surely had a feeling that the Nanking Massacre story is somehow questionable, if not say that it is problematic. I believe that if you read this book with fair and critical mind, you will get what are the points of this issue. There are no eyewitnesses of civilian massacre that have been substantiated.
Without that, the case should have been dismissed ages ago. But it has not been so because this is not searching the truth of a history but purely political issue between China and Japan, and maybe some kind of anti-fascist sentiment (that label was wrongly put on Japan) or simple hatred towards Japan among the ex-Allied countries, or, for the Americans,it was reverse of the guilt they may feel with the dropping of the atomic bombs.
I am not saying Japan was pure innocent, but as a Japanese, I just want to know on what count Japan was really guilty or not.
Rating: 4
Summary: new perspective, comprehensive
Comment: I really enjoyed the fresh perspectives this book offers me on the more than half-century old topic of Nanking Massacre. It puts this forgotten event in a larger context of history, historiography and political psychology of people across nations and generations. I recommend this book to serious readers of Nanking Massacre as well as students of history and historiography.
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Title: Decisive Encounters: The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950 by Odd Arne Westad ISBN: 080474484X Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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