A review by ehmannky
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang

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. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Blood, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Rape, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Colonisation, Genocide, Child death, Death, Gun violence, Incest, Sexual violence, Torture, and War