Nanjing 1937: Battle for a Doomed City

Review "Peter Harmsen has written a very important book about the Japanese defeat of Chinese Nationalist forces in defending their national capital, Nanjing... His final chapter on the Rape of Nanjing is one of the most powerful descriptions of those events as well as perhaps the very best analysis of why this most horrendous event occurred."--J. Bruce Jacobs, emeritus professor of Asian Languages and Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia"Peter Harmsen has once again ingeniously woven a vast range of Chinese, Japanese and Western source materials into a vivid tapestry of intense personal experience and world-shaking international conflict... Where the great Alan Furst's taut novels of wartime Europe stay just inside the fiction side of the boundary with history, Harmsen's dramatic style adds a gripping and novelistic quality to the powerful writing of 20th-century history."--Robert A. Kapp, author and past president, The US-China Business Council"This terrific piece of work fills a conspicuous void in English language literature on the Second Sino-Japanese War by providing the first comprehensive treatment of the 1937 Battle for Nanjing. The spritely narrative weaves research in Chinese, Japanese and Western sources into inside views of the top and bottom of the military, diplomatic and civilian levels. Harmsen achieves a remarkably even yet clear-eyed account that perhaps only a foreigner could achieve in approaching this searing collision of China and Japan."--Richard B. Frank, author of Guadalcanal and Downfall"Carefully researched... a valuable account of a little known event... a grim reminder of the darker side of war."--Military History Monthly"Harmsen deftly explains events from diplomatic and martial perspectives, movements from armies down to individual soldiers, including strategic and tactical concerns, both Chinese and Japanese, while skillfully laying the background for Nanjing's fall... Harmsen continues to offer a welcome, readable, multi-faceted look at the origins of World War II in Asia which other reports usually gloss over in their haste to reach the events after Pearl Harbor."--Strategy Page"Outstanding... Balanced, analytical and level-headed account emphasizing the military aspect... 'Nanjing 1937' is a formidably researched book, and Harmsen's dramatic narrative style makes the reader feel part of the events."--Jyllands-Posten "The journalist's narrative skill combines with the researcher's thoroughness of approach to produce a riveting account of the battle for Nanjing between Chinese and Japanese forces in early winter 1937... The book offers plenty for readers interested in military detail, and it also adds perspective and stimulates thought by including aspects of high politics... Brilliant."--Weekendavisen"Peter Harmsen's new book tells the whole story in great detail... Nanjing 1937 offers a detailed account of the campaign illustrated with numerous useful maps. It presents a point of view which most readers will not have encountered before. It's well worth a read."--Asian Review of Books"Meticulously researched... If we are fortunate, Harmsen will continue writing these histories. A golden age of Chinese military history is still far away, but if books like Harmsen's continue to be published, a golden age of China's World War II history may be just around the corner."--Strategy Bridge"Distinguished from other books on the Second Sino-Japanese War not only by its use of diverse primary sources, but also by its global perspective... Harmsen's journalistic writing style makes Nanjing 1937 a pleasant book for readers with a general interest in military history. Analysis of military tactics is balanced with vivid accounts of the combat experiences and psychologies of soldiers and officers in both armies, as revealed in their diaries and memoirs... Nanjing 1937 offers a remarkable account of a critical battle in the early stages of the Second Sino-Japanese War, reinforced by numerous photographs and maps."--The Journal of Military History About the Author

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