Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

28 reviews

bringlaurasnacks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

What can you even say about this book? It was horrifying, but I could not stop reading. This account of the real events of the Japanese atrocities in Nanking and by extension the rest of China during WWII will haunt you. It is a further crime against humanity how unaware the general public is of these events.

Beyond the historical accounts I found the second half of this book nearly as troubling as the first. I could not help but draw parallels between Japan's attempt to censor and minimize their own crimes (can we just call this genocide?) in texts and their education system to the current attempt to purge black history from the American school systems. This is an absolutely necessary read for every citizen of the world. "As Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice."

"Apparently some quirk in human nature allows even the most unspeakable acts of evil to become banal within minutes, provided only that they occur far enough away to pose. O personal threat." -Iris Chang

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Trafficking, Murder, Colonisation, and War

purplepickle's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

This is an incredibly well written and researched book. I felt physically ill many times throughout the book, and I struggled to push through all the chapters. Anyone who is interested in history must read this book, as it is unfortunately a very much forgotten chapter of human history. I'm glad to be infinitely more educated on this event then I was previously. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Mental illness, Cannibalism, and Abandonment

jasisreading's review against another edition

Soft DNF

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

thewallner's review against another edition

challenging informative fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Mental illness, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Xenophobia, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War

ariberri's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Very very hard read but so much awe for the author’s mission to tell the story

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Xenophobia, and Blood

readerofdafuk's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Jesus Christ this is some dark shit

I knew it was bad but Holy Shit 
Did well to explain the mentality of why it happened but man this was a brutal read

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and War

kayesomething's review against another edition

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Confinement, Xenophobia, and Pregnancy

dmathuna's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

I don’t even know what to say about a book that covers such topics. I’ll start by saying that it’s short enough at around 230 pages and aims to give an overview of such a wide ranging event that it can’t seriously detail much but what is told in here is extremely harrowing to read and then to comprehend that these acts were all done by humans to other humans. 

The sheer barbarity and brutality shown to the Chinese inhabitants of Nanjing  is staggering and each page you uncover a new horror you previously thought incomprehensible. The detailing of how widespread the systematic rape of all women regardless of age, pregnancy, occupation churned my stomach in a way I don’t think has ever happened to me. I am absolutely forever changed by the contents of this book and it will never leave me for the rest of my life..

The fact that elements of Japanese society still can’t accept that this event occurred much less that their soldiers carried it out with explicit knowledge by their government leaders is tragic and should be a crime akin to denial of the holocaust. I can only hope that since the time the book was published that attitudes there have started to change. More than 300,000 people were murdered by the occupation and we did them a disservice by not remembering this event more. 

At the time of me writing this review Iris Chang would have been 56.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Xenophobia, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Miscarriage

lorepanda's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and War

Moderate: Suicide and Xenophobia

vapblack's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective sad fast-paced

She has obvious anti socialist biases, but she grew up in usa so that's expected. 

As long as you're aware of her bias, it's a good and informative book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Incest, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Excrement, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Cannibalism, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Classism