Horror In The East

Laurence Rees' cutting insight into the reasons behind Japanese brutality in the Pacific during WW2.

The brutal Japanese treatment of allied prisoners of war, as well as countless thousands of Chinese civilians, during World War 2 has been well documented.

The brutality of Japanese soldiers towards both allied prisoners of war and millions of civilians in Asia during the Second World War was one of the greatest horrors of the Twentieth Century. Here Laurence Rees, award-winning historian and author of Auschwitz and The Nazis: a Warning from History, turns his attention to a crucial question: why were these atrocities carried out?

In this classic and seminal study, Rees talks openly with perpetrators and victims alike, and asks how seemingly ordinary people were driven to mass murder, rape and suicide. Uncovering startling first-hand testimonies of cruelty and barbarity, Horror in the East looks to individual experiences to understand this dark and violent chapter of human history.

'Another stunning slice of history from Laurence Rees'
Daily Telegraph review of Horror in the East, BBC TV