Differential Dispensation?

Two non-Japanese Asian American journalists write books about WWII Japan which are wildly popular, polemical, with serious historiographic and evidentiary problems. One of them I label"a positive force for History, Asian Studies, scholarship in general" and the other I consider"troubling" and her work"an historical and ethical abomination."

Hmm. Am I being unfair to Malkin, too fair to Chang, or is there a rational basis for the difference? There are powerful critiques of both available: Greg Robinson and Eric Muller on Malkin and article by David Askew on Chang. Both have defenders, as well, particularly among those who are comforted by the polemics, but rarely among the select groups of people who actually know enough about the subjects to write their own books.

The most obvious difference between the two is that one is exaggerating an event which clearly did happen, while the other is trying to demonstrate that something which didn't happen could have. In that sense, Malkin has the much tougher epistemological task, and should get some credit; Chang, though, is making an argument which is much harder to dismiss outright because it has a stronger evidentiary basis. My sympathies are with Chang: highlighting an atrocity seems to merit more praise than rationalizing one, particularly if you're going to do it badly; blaming the perpetrator excessively seems less problematic than justifying collective punishment for innocents. Both claimed to have uncovered new sources, but only Chang really has that to her credit, but that's not dispositive; new sources can be abused just as badly as old ones (or worse, if nobody else has access to them, though Chang did make her discoveries available). Comparing their other works, Chang's are much more substantive, less polemical (not apolemical, though), and her primary occupation was research and publication/speaking, whereas Malkin's work is highly political and her primary occupation is professional gadfly.

I can't shake my initial response, but I can't quite justify it either, to my own self-critical satisfaction. I'm not terribly troubled by my critiques of Malkin, as I know that history quite well; it's my relatively benign view of Chang which is kind of ungrounded.