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THE NANKING ATROCITY 1937-38: Complicating the Picture. Edited by Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2007. xx, 433pp. (Maps, tables.) US$95.00, cloth. ISBN978-1-84545-180-6.
The Nanking Atrocity is a timely, valuable addition to a controversial field. The horrific events that took place in 1937-38, and which have since been termed the Rape of Nanking, the Nanking Massacre or the Nanking Incident, are labelled the Nanking Atrocity in this volume, which contains contributions from ten scholars. Collectively, they forge a "largely non-American perspective" (ix) on the atrocity in three sections tided "War Crimes and Doubts," "Aggressors and Collaborators," and "Another Denied Holocaust?" The 16 chapters provide a carefully considered balance of historiography and research based on Chinese, English and Japanese sources. Many of the chapters have been published previously, most in Japanese. Their publication together in this one collection provides a tremendous service to those interested in die current, especially Japanese, state of the field.
The authors...