R.I.P. Iris Chang

Some of you may have heard of Iris Chang, others of you may have not.

Ms. Chang, who started out as an AP reporter left to pursue writing non-fiction books about the World War 2 era in the Pacific Theatre and Chinese-American history.

One of her books, The Rape of Nanking, became a best-seller and an important book. That book, in compelling and disturbing detail laid out the rape, torture and killing of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former Chinese capital in 1937-8. She recently "The Chinese in America," published last year, is a history of Chinese immigrants and their descendants in the United States.

She was considered by many to be one of the best young historians writing. I was one of those.

Unfortunately, she was also afflicted of late with crippling depression.

Yesterday, she committed suicide. She was 36 years old.