[1] The book significantly renewed public interest in Japanese wartime conduct in China, Korea, Southeast Asia (including the Philippines) and the Pacific.

It has been praised as a work that "shows more clearly than any previous account" the extent and brutality of the episode,[3] while elements of Chang's analysis of the motivations for the events, Japanese culture, and her calculation of the total numbers killed and raped were criticized as inaccurate because of her lack of training as a historian.

In the introduction of The Rape of Nanking, she wrote that throughout her childhood, the Nanjing Massacre "remained buried in the back of [her] mind as a metaphor for unspeakable evil."

[8] Chang began talking to Shao and Tong, and soon she was connected to a network of activists who felt the need to document and publicize the Nanjing Massacre.

[10] As she wrote in the book's introduction, while she was at the conference:I was suddenly in a panic that this terrifying disrespect for death and dying, this reversion in human social evolution, would be reduced to a footnote of history, treated like a harmless glitch in a computer program that might or might not again cause a problem, unless someone forced the world to remember it.

[5] She found source materials in the US, including diaries, films, and photographs of missionaries, journalists, and military officers who were in Nanjing at the time of the massacre.

[5] The diaries documented the events of the Nanjing Massacre from the perspectives of their writers, and provided detailed accounts of atrocities that they saw, as well as information surrounding the circumstances of the Nanking Safety Zone.

[17] The other diary belonged to Minnie Vautrin, the American missionary who saved the lives of about 10,000 women and children when she provided them with shelter in Ginling College.

[18] Vautrin's diary recounts her personal experience and feelings on the Nanjing Massacre; in it, an entry reads, "There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today.

The third part of the book examines the circumstances that, Chang believed, have kept knowledge of the massacre out of public consciousness decades after the war.

[28] Chang wrote of the death toll estimates given by different sources:[9]: 100 The book discusses the research of historian Sun Zhaiwei of the Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences.

She cited a message that Japan's foreign minister Kōki Hirota relayed to his contacts in Washington, DC in the first month of the massacre on January 17, 1938.

"[9]: 103–4 The Rape of Nanking sold more than half a million copies when it was first published in the US, and according to The New York Times, received general critical acclaim.

[11] Several leading historians said they believe that Chang’s revelation of Japanese wartime crimes and the country’s postwar attempts to cover up and distort history will help raise public awareness of the incident.

[30] Iris Chang became an instant celebrity in the US:[31] she was awarded honorary degrees;[32] invited to give lectures and to discuss the Nanjing Massacre on shows such as Good Morning America, Nightline, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; profiled by The New York Times; and was featured on the cover of Reader's Digest.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that it was the "first comprehensive examination of the destruction of this Chinese imperial city," and that Chang "skillfully excavated from oblivion the terrible events that took place."

The Chicago Tribune called it "a powerful new work of history and moral inquiry" and stated that "Chang takes great care to establish an accurate accounting of the dimensions of the violence."

"[33] According to William C. Kirby, Professor of History at Harvard University, Chang "shows more clearly than any previous account just what [the Japanese] did," and that she "draws connections between the slaughter in Europe and in Asia of millions of innocents during World War II.

In addition, Efron noted that geriatric Japanese soldiers have published their memoirs and have been giving speeches and interviews in increasing numbers, recounting the atrocities they committed or witnessed.

After years of government-enforced denial, Japanese middle school textbooks now carry accounts of the Nanjing massacre as accepted truth.

[30] San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Charles Burress wrote that Chang's quote of a secret telegram sent by Japan's foreign minister in 1938 was incorrectly cited as "compelling evidence" that Japanese troops killed at least 300,000 Chinese civilians in Nanjing.

Additionally, Burress questioned her motivation for writing the book—whether she wrote it as an activist or as a historian, stating that the book "draws its emotional impetus" from her conviction to not let the Nanjing Massacre be forgotten by the world.

[11] Burress also cited Ikuhiko Hata, a Japanese history professor at Nihon University, who alleged that 11 photos in the book were misrepresented or fake.

Men were assured of food, shelter and safety by Japanese soldiers, only to be lured to remote areas and used for bayonet practice or decapitation contests.

Finally, she criticized Burress for his "nitpick" of small details in order to draw attention away from the scope and magnitude of the Nanjing Massacre, writing that such was a "common tactic" of Holocaust deniers.

[30] She rejected the publisher's attempt to annotate about 65 items in the book, stating that the suggested changes were additional details, interpretations or assertions by right-wing critics for which no evidence was provided.

After publishing the book, Chang received hate mail, primarily from Japanese ultranationalists,[5] and threatening notes on her car and also believed her phone was tapped.