2 m) F" L5 K; pMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize" d4 ^, @3 z7 o! p' a
6 k" p6 L# I# W- a1 u9 xA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.( r B% ^' E8 D5 }! ]
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Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.4 d3 B7 g+ b- T1 I5 f& h [* Q. `
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". : f- R) {6 g* U; d' a4 m3 o7 f, N( n w0 s
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 3 a0 q+ i" u; B9 V& N9 m: `: K* l+ z; C# o1 z; }
Mao's Great Famine reveals new details of the period from 1958-1962, providing fresh historical perspectives on Mao's campaign to increase industrial production during which tens of millions starved to death. b/ I* d; {, k' I9 ?
( T; `, i1 z: G2 P1 ~5 fThe academic - currently chair of professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong - was one of a small number of historians to be given access into the Chinese archives.! E" X- Z4 }# s. r( |# f/ l4 L' M
' \6 T. ^* E* E/ [, Q) d1 n' TThis year's runners-up were Andrew Graham Dixon's Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane, Maya Jasanoff's Liberty's Exiles, Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist, Jonathan Steinberg's Bismarck: A Life, and John Stubbs' Reprobates. % v- ^& I" i. o. F! r' q8 R* C% k' v1 p+ Q3 k1 _" B6 m7 m3 u
They each received £1,000.; i: u8 y( i7 X$ q0 [* q( B- |
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The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
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