Japan's military aggression against China has been captured in a new series of books containing 25,000 photos taken since 1894.

The 25-volume set was published after four state-level museums, nine universities and five history research institutes began compiling the photos as part of a national program in 2010.

Many of the pictures are published for the first time. They show scenes from the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, World War II and ensuing military trials of Japanese war criminals.

"Pictures are the best method of historical study," said Zhang Xianwen of Nanjing University, also the books' editor in chief.

They provide solid academic support to rebut Japanese right-wing forces' distortion on Japan's invasion of China, Zhang said.

The books were jointly published by Shandong Pictorial Publishing House and Nanjing University's Center for Studies of Republic of China.

Their pictures were collected from Japan, the United States, the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The books have been added to the collections of the U.S. Library of Congress and the Harvard-Yenching Library.