The Nanking massacre

The Institut Français de Recherche sur l'Asie de l'Est-IFRAE (Inalco-Université Paris Cité-CNRS) invites you to its second "Rencontre de l'IFRAE".

Arnaud Nanta, director of research at the CNRS, is a historian of Japan from the late 19th century to the present day. He studies the history of knowledge and its relationship to politics, in metropolitan Japan and within its colonial empire. His publications include: "Le droit et la justice en contexte colonial à Taiwan et en Corée durant la colonisation japonaise" (Cahiers Jean Moulin, 2021); "Les sources primaires des officiers japonais lors du massacre de Nankin" (La violence politique vue par les historiens du Moyen- et de l'Extrême-Orient, Hémisphères, 2023).

The book Le massacre de Nankin (Nankin jiken) by Japanese historian KASAHARA Tokushi, originally published in 1997, is for the first time available in a European language. This book, a synthesis of KASAHARA's early work, is one of the most important comprehensive works on the question of the Nanking massacre (winter 1937), which is analyzed both in terms of its causes and the mechanisms at work, as well as in terms of the details of the event, within the limits of what can be grasped from historical sources. In this book, historian and sinologist KASAHARA Tokushi draws on all available sources: Chinese, Japanese, military sources made available around 1990, collections of testimonies from Chinese soldiers and survivors, as well as American and German documents, to deliver a detailed analysis of one of the most important events of war violence in the 20th century.

Organizer : Juliette Genevaz (Univ. Lyon 3/Ifrae)