Throughout its modern history China has suffered from immense destruction and loss of life from warfare. In its worst periods of warfare, the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War (1937-45), millions of civilians lost their lives. For China, the story of modern war-related death and suffering has remained hidden. The Rape of Nanking is beginning to be known, but hundreds of other massacres are still unrecognized by the outside world and even by China itself. The focus of The Scars of War is the social and psychological, not the economic, costs of war on the country. The book is illustrated with contemporary photographs and woodblock prints. Each chapter is introduced by a traditional Chinese saying (cheng-yu) on warfare.