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...

Written by the Director of the Tokyo Trial Research Centre at China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University, this book provides a unique analysis of war crime trials in Asia-Pacific after World War II. It offers a comprehensive review of key events during this period, covering preparations for the Trial, examining the role of the War Crimes Commission of the United Nations as well as offering a new analysis of the trial itself. Addressing the question of conventional war crimes, crimes against hum...

The New York Times bestseller that inspired the documentary Shanghai 1937: Where World War II Began on Public Television.At its height, the Battle of Shanghai involved nearly a million Chinese and Japanese soldiers while sucking in three million civilians as unwilling spectators—and often victims. It turned what had been a Japanese imperialist adventure in China into a general war between the two oldest and proudest civilizations of the Far East. U...

The New York Times bestselling account of one of history's most brutal—and forgotten—massacres, when the Japanese army destroyed China's capital city on the eve of World War II."A powerful, landmark book, riveting in its horror." —Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Making of the Atomic BombIn December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of...

A true story of the Sino-Japanese conflict: A "valuable account of a little-known event [and] a grim reminder of the darker side of war" ( Military History Monthly).The infamous Rape of Nanjing looms like a dark shadow over the history of Asia in the twentieth century, and is among the most widely recognized chapters of World War II in China. By contrast, the story of the month-long campaign before this notorious massacre has never been told in its entirety...

A history of the Chinese experience in WWII, named a Book of the Year by both the Economist and the Financial Times: "Superb" ( The New York Times Book Review).In 1937, two years before Hitler invaded Poland, Chinese troops clashed with Japanese occupiers in the first battle of World War II. Joining with the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, China became the fourth great ally in a devastating struggle for its very surviv...

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize“A startling work — awesomely ambitious, faultlessly researched, daring in its thesis, and profound in its implications." — Business Week"Magnificent. . . . everything a political biography should be." — Richmond Times-DispatchThis rich and powerful political biography is now given fresh relevance with a new introduction by the author that explores how Hirohito’s legacy persists in Japan ...

A portrayal of how and why Japan waged war from 1931-1945 and what life was like for the Japanese people in a society engaged in total war.

In a single short book as elegant as it is wise, Ian Buruma makes sense of the most fateful span of Japan’s history, the period that saw as dramatic a transformation as any country has ever known. In the course of little more than a hundred years from the day Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in his black ships, this insular, preindustrial realm mutated into an expansive military dictatorship that essentially supplanted the British, French, Dutch, and American empires in Asia before plunging...

Chinese Martial Code provides clear, easy-to-follow translations of three of the most respected Chinese works of military strategyIt features a masterful translation of The Art of War of Sun Tzu-the most respected of all works of military strategy-as well as the less famous but equally wise The Precepts of War by Sima Rangju and Wu Zi On the Art of War.Additionally, A. L. Sadler's translation is converted here into Pinyin...

Gaining an understanding of China's long and sometimes bloody history can help to shed light on China's ascent to global power. Many of China's imperial dynasties were established as the result of battle, from the chariot warfare of ancient times to the battles of the Guomindang (KMT) and Communist regimes of the twentieth century. China's ability to sustain complex warfare on a very large scale was not emulated in other parts of the world until the Industrial Age, despite the fact that th...

"The most extensive record available in English of the ugly story."—Elisabeth Rubinfein, New York NewsdayOver 100,000 women across Asia were victims of enforced prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Forces during World War II. Until as recently as 1993 the Japanese government continued to deny this shameful aspect of its wartime history. George Hicks's book is the only history in English regarding this terrible enslavement of women.