This is an Online Internet Book Club on The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe by John Rabe. Discuss this book, share your thoughts, make comments, ask questions, offer responses...
Description
In November 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army took Nanking (Nanjing), the capital of China and home to 1.3 million people, and began an orgy of murder, rape, and looting. By the time discipline was restored two months later, hundreds of thousands of Chinese were dead, with hundreds of thousands more homeless, starving, and traumatized. The Rape of Nanking, as it is commonly known, still causes international controversy, as Japanese politicians refuse to apologize unequivocally to China and school textbooks continue to misrepresent the events.
Like Oskar Schindler of Schindler's List, John Rabe was an enterprising and fundamentally decent German businessman caught up in war. Head of the Nanjing branch of Siemens, the German electronics firm, he had lived and worked in China for almost 30 years. Rather than flee from the threatened city, he stayed to organize a safety zone as refuge of last resort for Chinese civilians. The Good Man of Nanking is his firsthand description of the terrible events and his ultimate success in saving perhaps a quarter of a million lives. The diary format provides a forum for the extraordinary power and immediacy of John Rabe's words, including his gallows humor, placing the reader there in Nanking as the bombs explode and the Japanese soldiers begin their massacres. Rabe's trials were not over when he returned to wartime Germany; diary entries that he wrote during the occupation of Berlin by the Soviet army form a fascinating coda to this book. --John Stevenson
Book Club Questions for The Good Man of Nanking (Fiction)
Suggested Book Club Questions for The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe (Fiction)
The following book club questions provide a starting point for creating a reading group discussion on The Good Man of Nanking:
- Did John Rabe emphasize any specific themes throughout The Good Man of Nanking? What do you think John Rabe is trying to explain with this theme?
- What was unique about the setting of The Good Man of Nanking and how did it affect the storyline?
- Could you relate to any of the characters? If so, which ones and why?
- How do characters change or learn throughout The Good Man of Nanking? What events caused these changes? Have you or someone you know experienced the same thing?
- How does The Good Man of Nanking reveal John Rabe's own perspectives about people and the world? For a lively discussion, describe why you think John Rabe is liberal or conservative.
- Did certain parts of The Good Man of Nanking affect you emotionally? Why did it evoke those emotions?
- Did John Rabe's point of view on things lend new perspective to your own view of the world?
Book Club Questions for The Good Man of Nanking (for Non-Fiction)
Suggested Book Club Questions for The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe (Non-fiction)
The following book club questions provide a starting point for creating a reading group discussion on The Good Man of Nanking:
- Did John Rabe make persuasive arguments in The Good Man of Nanking? Did The Good Man of Nanking change or reinforce your opinion on the subject?
- What did you learn from The Good Man of Nanking?
- How does John Rabe present the information and did you enjoy it?
- How is John Rabe biased within The Good Man of Nanking? Is there a political slant to what is being discussed and how does it impact the book?
- What, if anything, does The Good Man of Nanking make you want to read next? Why?
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