One of the most controversial events of the Pacific War, the Nanjing Massacre and the ensuing battles over its legitimacy in today's collective memory illustrate the difficulties in using memory as a method for understanding and accept the actions of the past. Daqing Yang accurately states, “historians must address the question of how to evaluate human memory as credible historical evidence, since it has cast a shadow over debates about World War II in Asia” (Yang, 142). Even more interesting in this debate is the role that non-historical accounts play in this ensuing battle of legitimacy versus politicization because, as Yang further mentions, the burden of producing credible historical accounts “for historical inquiry” falls on the expert historian ( Yang, 135). . The perspectives offered in Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (1997) and Masaaki's “What Really Happened in Nanking” (2000) complicate this aforementioned position, however, due to their widespread influence on society, despite the fact that neither author is an academic historian. Can non-historical works written for personal and subjective reasons serve as an appropriate method for disseminating credible information to the public? By first presenting the various flaws and problems – linguistic differences, biases, lack of comprehensive evidence – that arise with the use of this form of narration of historical events, this article argues that these forms of narration should be considered and compared with the presented works by historians. to provide a more accurate historiographical review of these incidents. As a result, we are able to consider the validity of the memory as historical evidence in light of the controversy surrounding...... middle of the paper ...... ok to the qualitative data and create a different narrative for this incident. While neither account is perfect, Chang and Masaaki provide readers with great perspective on the different beliefs surrounding the Rape of Nanjing. When compared with each other and with other historical accounts, they allow readers to get a better sense of the complicated history of the Pacific War. The use of imagery, the impact that language has on interpretation, and the overall influence of politics on events like this complicate understanding memory and its role in providing valid historical evidence. As this article argues, however, while non-historical works cannot be taken at face value or as representative of what society as a whole believes, they complement historical accounts and provide more information that helps evaluate the collective memory of Today..