The writings of soldiers and eyewitnesses of the 1937 Nanking massacre, along with post-war deniers and participants of Japan’s modern academic movement depicts the progressive and dualistic nature of Japanese society. This paper demonstrates the struggle for an accurate representation of the past that results from the socially and politically conflicted post-war Japanese state.The post-war fifty-four year reign of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party demonstrated the conservative attitude of its political structures and reluctance to relinquish its traditional Bushido hierarchy. The traditionalist behaviour exhibited during Japan’s imperial expansion was later manifested in their political and social establishments. This resulted in the publication and promotion of imperial sympathisers and deniers, preventing the accurate portrayal of Japan’s history.Despite the pressure from political and cultural leaders, Japan’s liberal academic institutions promoted the construction of a truthful portrayal of Japanese history. This social progression contributed to the formation of the Democratic Party of Japan in 1998. DPJ President Katsuya Okada promoted the need for progress, commenting on Japan’s state being “worsened by historical issues and the problem of history textbooks”It was the concept of a state divided by its cultural past and progressive future that caught my fascination and resulted in the historiographical investigation focusing on the relationship between the changing portrayal of imperialism and the attainment of historical truth. Focusing on the 1937 occupation of Nanking, it is evidently a historical event swathed in political corruption and societal self-interest. This short investigation has been divided into three major phases: the initial pride of civil and political Japan, the denial of post-war polemical authors, and the liberation of Japan’s history through privatized academia. This paper is dependent on the accounts of historians and individuals who vary in context, perspective and motivation. Despite the conflicting opinions, modern anachronisms have been omitted as all depictions of Japan’s imperial attitude are portrayed as intended. By selecting the writings of soldiers and eyewitnesses, post-war deniers and participants of Japan’s modern academic movement, this paper depicts the progressive and dualistic nature of Japanese society. Therefore, the investigation demonstrates the struggle for an accurate representation of the past that results from the socially and politically conflicted Japanese state.

The Good Man of Nanking is a crucial document for understanding one of World War II's most horrific incidents of genocide, one which the Japanese have steadfastly refused to acknowledge. It is also the moving and awe-inspiring record of one man's conscience, courage, and generosity in the face of appalling human brutality.Until the recent emergence of John Rabe's diaries, few people knew abouth the unassuming hero who has been called the Oskar Schindler of China. In Novemgber 1937, as Japanese troops overran the Chinese capital of Nanking and began a campaign of torture, rape, and murder against its citizens, one man-a German who had lived in China for thirty years and who was a loyal follower of Adolph Hitler-put himself at risk and in order to save the lives of 200,000 poor Chinese, 600 of whom he sheltered in his own home.From the Trade Paperback edition.

'There is an act, a very particular form of torture, which anthropologists and historians occasionally ruminate over. It is an act still reported from time to time from far-flung war zones around the world. What is unusual is that in spite of the oral evidence it has never been captured on film. But if film did exist, some people say, the most likely place it would come from, the place that was always whispered, the place that first comes to mind, is Nanking.' Student Grey Hutchins comes to Tokyo seeking a rare piece of film showing the notorious Nanking Massacre in which, in one city, the Imperial Japanese Army butchered up to 300,000 civilians. Only one man can help her, a survivor of the massacre, and now a visiting professor at the prestigious University of Todai in Tokyo; a man who is rumoured to possess documentary evidence of Nanking.But first Grey must gain his trust. Desperate and alone, she accepts a job as a hostess in an upmarket nightspot catering for Japanese businessmen and wealthy gangsters. One gangster dominates – an old man in a wheelchair guarded by a terrifying entourage – who is said to rely on a powerful elixir for his continued wealth and well-being. It is an elixir that others want for themselves – at any price. With its focus on the Tokyo underworld and China in the late 1930s, and a woman who has a lot to prove and even more to hide, this is a literary thriller of the highest order.

With the redolent atmosphere of Ian Rankin and the spine-chilling characters of Thomas Harris, Mo Hayder's The Devil of Nanking, takes the reader on an electrifying literary ride from the palatial apartments of yakuza kingpins to deep inside the secret history of one of the twentieth century's most brutal events: the Nanking Massacre.A young Englishwoman obsessed with an indecipherable past, Grey comes to Tokyo seeking a lost piece of film footage of the notorious 1937 Nanking Massacre, footage some say never existed. Only one man can help Grey. A survivor of the massacre, he is now a visiting professor at a university in Tokyo. But he will have nothing to do with her.So Grey accepts a job in an upmarket nightspot, where a certain gangster may be the key to gaining the professor's trust. An old man in a wheelchair surrounded by a terrifying entourage, the gangster is rumored to rely on a mysterious elixir for his continued health. Taut, gritty, sexy, and harrowing, The...

Marjorie Chan's gripping narrative intertwines the past and the present, transporting the reader between Irene and a small group of unlikely heroes caught in the invasion. Scrambling to create a refuge from the horror, the band's struggle to survive binds them in a promise that will span the ages of time, while Irene struggles to reveal the truth despite her publisher's conservative worries. a nanking winter brings the horror and endurance of a nation's history into stark focus with breathtaking clarity and brutal honesty.

In December 1937, in what was then the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking (Nanjing) and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured, and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity—one of the worst in world history—continues to be denied by the Japanese government. Based on extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents in four different languages (many never before published), Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped the massacre, has written what will surely be the definitive, English-language history of this horrifying episode—one that the Japanese have tried for years to erase from public consciousness. The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers who performed it; of the Chinese civilians who endured it; and finally of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved almost 300,000 Chinese. It was Chang who discovered the diaries of the German leader of this rescue effort, John Rabe, whom she calls the “Oskar Schindler of China.” A loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler but far from the terror planned in his Nazi-controlled homeland, he worked tirelessly to save the innocent from slaughter. But this book does more than just narrate details of an orgy of violence; it attempts to analyze the degree to which the Japanese imperial government and its militaristic culture fostered in the Japanese soldier a total disregard for human life. Finally, it tells one more shocking story: Despite the fact that the death toll at Nanking exceeded the immediate deaths from the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (and even the total wartime casualty count of entire European countries), the Cold War led to a concerted effort on the part of the West and even the Chinese to court the loyalty of Japan and stifle open discussion of this atrocity. Indeed, Chang characterized this conspiracy of silence, which persists to this day, as “a second rape.” Contains a table! Best viewed with CoolReader.