This paper is a study of how the Rape of Nanking in December
1937 and January 1938 by the Japanese Army is reported in the 88
history textbooks used in Japanese high schools in 1995. The textbooks
do, contrary to widely stated opinion, deal with the event in reasonable
detail. However, an analysis of the language of the textbooks shows
that they often contain this information in the form of closed text (in
Eco’s sense of the term), which, I suggest, prevents students from arriving
at a full understanding of the atrocity. One possible result of this
is that students have no basis from which they can critically respond to
denials within modern Japanese society that this well documented atrocity
took place.
