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 mass murder and large-scale depravity by the Japanese military during World War II in China. The Rape of Nanjing 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). This was the university where Iris first studied computer science and then journalism. She then earned a master's degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University and became a full-time writer (Jiang). At age twenty-five, Iris wrote her first book while still at Johns Hopkins, titled The Silkworm 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 the stories told by her parents and grandparents about the atrocities of the Chinese Holocaust, Iris Chang went to the university library to find more information but couldn't find anything, leaving her to wonder if the stories were true. (Jiang). Iris married her husband Brett Douglas in Illinois. They then moved to the South Bay area of ​​California. In December 1994, while in Cupertino, California, Iris came across an event celebrating the fifty-seventh anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre. On display were black-and-white photos showing the gruesome reality of the carnage that occurred in Nanjing decades ago. These photos immediately set Iris on a long journey in search of the truth (Jiang 5). Iris spent the next two years meticulously tracking down all information related to the accident, 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 what Iris's research produced; By the mid-1930s Nanjing's population was well over one million, largely because many refugees were fleeing the Japanese army that had invaded China in 1931. Japan had entered China and other parts of Asia before start of World War II, and halt their campaign until the U.