The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II The book I chose to read was The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang. This book describes the mass murders and large-scale depravity carried out by the Japanese military during World War II in China. The Rape of Nanking describes the events that occurred before, during and after the invasion and desecration of the Chinese people and their city. Iris Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey on March 28, 1968. The Chang family later moved to Champagne-Urbana. , Illinois because his mother and father accepted professorships at the University of Illinois (Becker). It was at this university that Iris first studied computer science, then journalism. She later earned an MFA in writing from Johns Hopkins University and became a full-time writer (Jiang). At the age of twenty-five, Iris wrote her first book while still at Johns Hopkins, titled The Silkworm's Thread. This book chronicles the life and career of Tsien Hsue-Shen and his contributions to the modern space age and nuclear missiles. Inspired by stories told to her by her parents and grandparents about the atrocities of the Chinese Holocaust, Iris Chang went to the university library to find more information but found nothing, leaving her wondering if these stories were true. (Jiang).Iris married her husband Brett Douglas in Illinois. They later moved to the South Bay area of ​​California. In December 1994, while in Cupertino, California, Iris witnessed an event marking the fifty-seventh anniversary of the Nanking Massacre. Black and white photos showing the horrific reality of the carnage in Nanking decades ago were on display. These photos immediately set Iris on a long path of searching for the truth (Jiang 5). Iris spent the next two years meticulously researching all information relating to the incident, including a trip to Nanjing. In 1997, Iris Chang published The Rape of Nanking which quickly became a success and remained a New York Times bestseller for many months. The following summary is the product of Iris's research; By the mid-1930s, the population of Nanking was well over a million, mainly because many refugees were fleeing the Japanese army that had invaded China in 1931. Japan had entered China and other parts of Asia before the start of World War II, and did not make it. stop their campaign until the U.