wellreadandhalfdead's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

5.0


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sgallagherr's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative medium-paced

5.0


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e_gracereads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

Should be required reading in any and all world history courses, military history courses, and quite frankly, history in general. Tough and emotional, but straightforward and informative. Devastating in its details, but a powerful read. 

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computerwhiz's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

5.0


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christine_beatrice's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective

4.0


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_meeg's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.75


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bleedingphoenix's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Incredibly important book that everyone should read (if you can stomch the topic). It was hard to read and I had to take several week long breaks because the book was so shocking and depressing. But that is exactly the reason why everyone should read this book. The author, Iris Chang, did an incredibly job researching for this book. She collected many eyewitness reports, things no one had even heard of before. For example, she was the reason, why the world learnt about wwhat happened to John Rabe, the so-called Buddha of Nanjing, a person who saved thousands of people and ended up living in poverty. 
The world was about to forget what had actually taken place in Nanjing in 1938/9, how horrific those the actions of the Japanese soldiers actually had been and how mich the Chinese population had suffered. The goal of the Japanese Government is to forget the atrocities they did in China (and Korea, etc.) and is doing a really good job of it with the help of the US, as economic interests weigh more than justice apparently. You cannot overstate how important Chang's work has been and I'm thankful and inspired by her work. Her book has been one of the very few way the victims of the rape of Nanjing have been given some justice. 
Please, if you have the time, read this book and then tell everyone you know about what you've learnt. 
RIP Iris Chang

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ehmannky's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

4.75

Like a lot of people, my knowledge of World War II in the Pacific is not particularly comprehensive and my awareness of what Japanese imperialism and war crimes was limited to a hazy understanding of "they were bad." But I don't think I could have fathomed the depths of suffering that occurred during the Rape of Nanking. Cheng does a really good job summarizing the forces behind the massacre, going into details about the brutal acts (which even when reported on using what I felt was pretty neutral language is just wildly horrific to read), and the global collusion between world governments (including China's!) about why this is so understudied and unknown. 

I didn't love the audiobook narrator for this, but listening to her read at, like, 1.25x speed was just fine. 

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kshertz's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.5

I knew next to nothing about this historical event going in. I learned so much. It’s a very brutal and difficult book to read but a very important one. Definitely think it’s something people should talk about more. I definitely think we should be holding Japan accountable as well. It also makes you reflect on the US and their own “Holocaust”’as well. Extremely well researched and very necessary info for people to have. It’s not a stretch to say the author put themselves in danger deciding to write this book. I appreciated the opportunity to learn and grow and will pass this info on. 

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knlipke's review against another edition

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It has nothing to do with how the book was written!!!! I found myself disgusted with the very true, real life events that happened to these poor people of Nanking that I couldn’t read on for the sake of my mental health. I will pick it up again one day

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