The Rape of Nanking

Iris Chang, whose own grandparents barely escaped, recounts the massacre that followed the Japanese army's capture of Nanking, then the capital of China, in December 1937, when soldiers looted and burned the city and killed, tortured and raped civilians on a vast scale. Chang presents the perspectives of the Chinese who suffered it, the soldiers who carried it out, and the Western residents who set up a safety zone. She drew on survivor interviews and documents in four languages, and her research brought to light the diaries of Minnie Vautrin and John Rabe. It drew both praise and criticism, notably of her death toll figures. Published in 1997, it was among the first major English-language books on the massacre.

Jordan B. Peterson included it on his published book list.