 Joshua A. Fogel , at York University , argued that the book is " seriously flawed " and " full of misinformation and harebrained explanations . " He suggested that the book " starts to fall apart " when Chang tries to explain why the massacre took place , as she repeatedly comments on " the Japanese psyche " , which she sees as " the historical product of centuries of conditioning that all boil down to mass murder " even though in the introduction , she wrote that she would offer no " commentary on the Japanese character or the genetic makeup of a people who could commit such acts " . Fogel asserted that part of the problem was Chang 's " lack of training as a historian " and another part was " the book 's dual aim as passionate polemic and dispassionate history " . David M. Kennedy , a Pulitzer Prize @-@ winning professor of history at Stanford University , also pointed out that while Chang noted that " this book is not intended as a commentary on the Japanese character , " she then wrote about the " ' Japanese identity ' — a bloody business , in her estimation , replete with martial competitions , samurai ethics , and the fearsome warriors ' code of bushido " , making the inference that " ' the path to Nanking ' runs through the very marrow of Japanese culture . " Kennedy also suggested that " accusation and outrage , rather than analysis and understanding , are this book 's dominant motifs , and although outrage is a morally necessary response to Nanjing , it is an intellectually insufficient one . " Roger B. Jeans , professor of history at Washington and Lee University , referred to Chang 's book as " half @-@ baked history " , and criticized her lack of experience with the subject matter : 
