The War in China

Briefing

Japan's full-scale invasion of China in July 1937 opened the Second World War in Asia two years before Europe, and the massacre at Nanking that December killed as many as 300,000 civilians. The war tied down over half the Japanese army for eight years and killed perhaps fourteen million Chinese — a theater the West forgot almost as soon as it ended.

Books Covering This Event (3)

Popular History

The Rape of Nanking Iris Chang · 1997

The forgotten massacre of 1937, when the Japanese army murdered and raped its way through China's capital.

Intermediate

Forgotten Ally Rana Mitter · 2013

China's eight-year war against Japan — fourteen million dead, and a story the West wrote out of the war.

Intermediate

Historical Fiction

Empire of the Sun J.G. Ballard · 1984

A British boy comes of age in a Japanese internment camp outside Shanghai — drawn from Ballard's own childhood.

Intermediate