the Scott Stein

I just finished reading Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking. I've read my share of horrifying nonfiction these last couple of years, including books about the Soviet Gulag, the fire-bombing of Dresden, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. All contain gruesome details of intense human suffering. And none of them is quite as haunting — as immediate and violent — as Chang's book. Rough stuff. No horror writer's fantasies can compare to what real life has provided in abundance. It's unfortunate that so many people don't even know to what "the Rape" refers. Almost as disturbing as the atrocities themselves is what people are being taught today in Japan about Japan's actions in and around World War II. Chang does a good job of exploring that as well. The Rape of Nanking is a hard book to read because of its content, but an easy and engaging one, and I recommend it, despite the odds of it interfering with peaceful sleep. You've been warned. (And if you're squeamish, do not look at the photos.)