- 南京大屠杀史（A History of the Nanjing Massacre）
- 张宪文 梁侃
- 750字
- 2025-03-23 05:52:14
Preface to English Edition
The Nanjing Massacre is known as one of the darkest pages in twentieth-century world history. For various reasons, however, this historical tragedy remained relatively unknown to the general public in the West until the 1997 publication of Iris Chang's popular book, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. Since then, the topic has drawn more attention.(1) At the same time, continuing denial of the massacre by right-wing Japanese scholars and politicians makes this topic no longer merely a historical event, but also part of the ongoing political discourse, particularly in East Asian countries. The publication of this translation, we believe, will provide the Western audience with a more comprehensive understanding of this atrocity and its repercussions.
This volume, A History of the Nanjing Massacre, is an important work deserving our attention. It is the first comprehensive narration of the massacre written by a group of Chinese scholars from Nanjing. From the fall of the city, to the atrocities themselves, to the international community's efforts to save refugees, and finally to the trials of the war criminals, the book offers a complete story of the massacre from the Chinese, Japanese, and Western perspectives. In addition, the text is based substantially upon a newly published source collection. Beginning in the year 2000, Professor Zhang Xianwen of Nanjing University, working with scholars in 20 universities and research institutions in China and abroad, led a team to collect all historical sources on the Nanjing Massacre worldwide, including archived government documents, newspaper reports, personal recollections of survivors and participants, and many other relevant sources. This massive effort resulted in the publication of 72 volumes of history—nearly 40 million Chinese characters—which is now the most comprehensive collection on the topic.(2) The collection greatly contributes to the study of the Nanjing Massacre in particular but also offers further understanding of war atrocities and genocide in general. This book, as the reader will see, is a direct product of this source collection.(3)
About a year ago, Professor Zhang approached Kan Liang, his former student, to seek possible translators for the book. Kan immediately recommended Michelle LeSourd, his former classmate at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies and a graduate of Pomona College in Chinese language and literature. As a professional Chinese-English translator since 2002, she has translated or edited a variety of academic journal articles and monographs. Kan Liang earned his doctorate at Yale University and is currently associate professor of history and associate dean at Seattle University. Michelle was responsible for translating the text and performing English citation research, while Kan acted as editor and proofreader.
Throughout the text, we chose to use Hanyu Pinyin to transliterate Chinese personal and place names, unless universally known by another spelling, and Hepburn romanization for Japanese names. Chinese and Japanese names are presented surname first, unless in an Anglicized form. To facilitate the Western reader's understanding, some background explanations are added in the text and footnotes.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the following individuals. First, we thank Professor Zhang Xianwen, who entrusted us with this meaningful project. Lisa Maynard provided meticulous copyediting for the entire English manuscript, and Erika Kinno offered crucial assistance with the many Japanese names and publication titles. We also thank Lü Jing of Nanjing University, who oversaw day-to-day communications and logistics for the translation and answered many questions arising in the process. At Nanjing University Press, editor Zhang Shuwen diligently and quickly caught errors in the manuscript, while editor Li Hongmin performed significant preparatory work for the publication.
Michelle LeSourd
Kan Liang
Seattle, Washington
September 2015
(1) In addition to the scholarly works mentioned in the Introduction and footnotes throughout this book, see Joshua A. Fogel, The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) and Yoshida Takashi, The Making of the “Rape of Nanking”: History and Memory in China, Japan, and the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). A number of journal articles as well as television and film productions also address the topic.
(2) Zhang Xianwen, ed., Nanjing Da Tusha shiliaoji [Nanjing Massacre historical collection](Nanjing: Jiangsu People's Publishing, Ltd., 2005—2010).
(3) In 2012, the three-volume Nanjing Da Tusha shiliaoji [A History of the Nanjing Massacre], edited by Zhang Xianwen, et al. was published. A condensed single volume was published in 2014 partly in preparation for the English and Japanese translations.