A compelling historiographic study of the Rape of Nanjing during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, one of the worst atrocities of all times, and of the event's repercussions.

A compelling historiographic study of the Rape of Nanjing during the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, one of the worst atrocities of all times, and of the event's repercussions.

This is an authoritative volume of historiographical essays that survey the state of U.S. diplomatic history. The essays cover the entire range of the history of American foreign relations from the colonial period to the present. They discuss the major sources and analyze the most influential books and articles in the field. Includes discussions of new methodological approaches in diplomatic history.

Based on extensive research on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, this book closely examines the claims and controversy surrounding the ‘Nanjing Massacre’, a period of murder in 1937-1938 committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing (Nanking), after the capture of the then capital of the Republic of China, during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Focusing on weighing up arguments denying Nanjing Massacre, this book considers the Japanese ‘Illusion’ school of thought which contests the truth of the Nanjing Massacre claims, including the death toll and the scale of the violence. The Nanjing Massacre remains a controversial issue in Sino-Japanese relations, despite the normalization of bilateral relations, and this book goes to great lengths to examine the events through comparative narratives, investigating different perspectives and contributings to the debate from the extensive research of the Tokyo Trial Research Centre at Shanghai, as well as volumes of Chinese and Japanese historical documents.

In his new book Adam Gamble reveals how the Japanese media have dangerously overstepped their boundaries and distorted--even wiped out--honest news.

The history of East Asia can be most productively studied through a transnational, translingual, and transcultural approach to the region. In The Sinosphere and Beyond, twenty-six leading and emerging scholars use such approaches in rich clusters of essays on Historiography, Sino-Japanese Encounters, Law and Justice, Politics, Art, Literature, and Translation. Each essay builds on the legacy of Joshua Fogel, whose scholarship defined the contours of the Sinosphere in the Western world and beyond. The collection will be of interest to scholars and students with specific research concerns within these broader rubrics: from the towering progenitors of Japanese Sinology to gendered, diplomatic, and cultural dimensions of Sino-Japanese encounters; from Sinitic poetry to legal culture and revolutionary life; from art commerce and levels of literary expression to the quandaries of translation. In addition to offering a broad range of case studies, the volume is testimony to the methodological importance of a dynamic intra- and transregional approach for an understanding of the layered history of East Asia.

Drawing on cultural trauma theory, this book investigates how collective memory of the Nanjing Massacre is fashioned in China and how the mass media, political power and public praxis jointly shape the politics and culture of memory in contemporary China. Allowing for the dimensions of history and different mediating spaces, the authors first conduct textual analysis of news reports from traditional media since the event took place, revealing that the significance of the Massacre was initially portrayed as a local incident before its construction as a national trauma and finally a collective memory. In a study of physical and online memorial spaces, including the Memorial Hall, commemorative activities on the Internet and new media platforms, the book unveils the production and reproduction of trauma narratives as well as how these narratives have been challenged. The final part further studies the interactions between media and other institutional settings while exploring issues of global memory and reconciliation in East Asia. The title will be an essential read for anyone interested in memory studies, media and communication, and particularly the collective memory of the Nanjing Massacre.

On December 13, 1937, the Japanese army attacked and captured the Chinese capital city of Nanjing, planting the rising-sun flag atop the city's outer walls. What occurred in the ensuing weeks and months has been the source of a tempestuous debate ever since. It is well known that the Japanese military committed wholesale atrocities after the fall of the city, massacring large numbers of Chinese during the both the Battle of Nanjing and in its aftermath. Yet the exact details of the war crimes--how many people were killed during the battle? How many after? How many women were raped? Were prisoners executed? How unspeakable were the acts committed?--are the source of controversy among Japanese, Chinese, and American historians to this day. In The Making of the "Rape of Nanking Takashi Yoshida examines how views of the Nanjing Massacre have evolved in history writing and public memory in Japan, China, and the United States. For these nations, the question of how to treat the legacy of Nanjing--whether to deplore it, sanitize it, rationalize it, or even ignore it--has aroused passions revolving around ethics, nationality, and historical identity. Drawing on a rich analysis of Chinese, Japanese, and American history textbooks and newspapers, Yoshida traces the evolving--and often conflicting--understandings of the Nanjing Massacre, revealing how changing social and political environments have influenced the debate. Yoshida suggests that, from the 1970s on, the dispute over Nanjing has become more lively, more globalized, and immeasurably more intense, due in part to Japanese revisionist history and a renewed emphasis on patriotic education in China. While today it is easy to assume that the Nanjing Massacre has always been viewed as an emblem of Japan's wartime aggression in China, the image of the "Rape of Nanking" is a much more recent icon in public consciousness. Takashi Yoshida analyzes the process by which the Nanjing Massacre has become an international symbol, and provides a fair and respectful treatment of the politically charged and controversial debate over its history.

First published in 2007, The Nanking Atrocity remains an essential resource for understanding the massacre committed by Japanese soldiers in Nanking, China during the winter of 1937-38. Through a series of deeply considered and empirically rigorous essays, it provides a far more complex and nuanced perspective than that found in works like Iris Chang’s bestselling The Rape of Nanking. It systematically reveals the flaws and exaggerations in Chang’s book while deflating the self-exculpatory narratives that persist in Japan even today. This second edition includes an extensive new introduction by the editor reflecting on the historiographical developments of the last decade, in advance of the 80th anniversary of the massacre.

In Dark Pasts, Jennifer M. Dixon asks why states deny past atrocities, and when and why they change the stories they tell about them. In recent decades, states have been called on to acknowledge and apologize for historic wrongs. Some have apologized, while others have silenced, denied, and relativized past crimes. Dark Pasts unravels the complex and fraught processes through which state narratives of past atrocities are constructed, contested, and defended. Focusing on Turkey's narrative of the Armenian Genocide and Japan's narrative of the Nanjing Massacre, Dixon shows that international pressures increase the likelihood of change in states' narratives of their own dark pasts, even as domestic considerations determine their content. Combining historical richness and analytical rigor, Dark Pasts is a revelatory study of the persistent presence of the past and the politics that shape narratives of state wrongdoing.