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AbstractEvery nation, every society has its share of historical memories. They include, most obviously, the experiences of people who lived through past events, as they recall them. Then there is the record, written down in textbooks or literary works transmitted to generations who came after these events, but relived them vicariously, trusting in the accuracy of their national historians. Often historical records are magnified—or smudged out—by popular myths. In some cases, whether because of wars, revolutions, or other political upheavals, the records for a period of history are defective or totally missing from the national memory.

This book is based on four visits to China between 1971 and 1989 by Honda Katsuichi, an investigative journalist for Asahi Shimbun. His aim is to show in pitiless detail the horrors of the Japanese Army's seizure and capture of Nanjing in December 1937. Unvarnished accounts of the testimony - Chinese victims and Japanese perpetrators - to the rape and slaughter are juxtaposed with public relations announcements of the Japanese Army as printed in various Japanese newspapers of the time. The bland announcements of triumphant victories stand in bitter contrast to the atrocities that actually took.