2 h* D" M N/ }: Y! R 9 _9 H" c( u; [1 O& w1 X冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。 : {. G) l% E; ^7 c- b. A7 Y' ?) ]2 r. c% q2 X" i# F1 Q
Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize# H$ Y t/ {% s
2 W: _6 f2 w. J' w* E6 lA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. 4 `3 M( E2 t: r- X - G6 G& K" l6 J+ l0 y7 g, SMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. # q% Z0 @ c9 P: U1 F3 b9 a c% v1 `" G
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly"./ y2 ~8 P. F: g3 p( i) b6 m
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". " J) m; u# n2 v: B: p/ S0 W; z V* W, ?; |3 w# U( C" P
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. g* r% o( k1 }" a" C1 H! ~& Z
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The 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. 1 s4 I$ \3 D3 C' n" r6 Q2 ?2 K1 R5 \0 e; z; S
This 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. i3 o" Q$ }, q( W4 Y* Y, g4 G( Q3 M* t
They each received £1,000.4 a1 e- g! x+ O' X! p/ @+ {+ k! D
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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.