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We like to think that no single person is more important than another - that all humans deserve to be treated equally, and with respect and dignity. But we can't help but think that Iris Chang was someone extra special and extra important. She was much more than a writer, a journalist or a historian. Chang's passing last week has left a palpable hole, both emotionally and academically, in the Asian American community.
The late historian Stephen Ambrose once called Chang "maybe the best young historian we've got, because she understands that to communicate history, you've got to tell the story in an interesting way." Chang was the best-selling author of the seminal and controversial Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, published in 1997.
At just 36 years old, she died Nov. 10 of a self-inflicted gunshot, near her San Jose, Calif., home. Reports say she had recently suffered a breakdown and had to be hospitalized.
Chang...