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冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。! f: `' }$ }0 N3 } T1 o w3 \
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize4 d- [1 {+ E1 V
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A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. 0 V( J( v0 s( {+ l/ e q 8 o. K3 V+ b8 Z" C+ W: ~& CMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. 6 U6 G; @5 u; }, r c: [. A3 }( ` : p7 i4 e, T9 t1 U4 w6 P" H/ Q( jChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".3 O/ _! c/ b+ s" B# ^
x [$ }; P" x. DHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".9 j# O2 m" T ?5 s$ Z6 _* w
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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. ) f6 R& {) T9 o 1 u& ^1 a; _* F/ r, U, j: dThe 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.4 t- n3 L6 } [+ E- h5 |: ^
- E# d1 S( R0 @# S6 t) Y: _, JThis 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. 4 D% A' }2 d* X3 H# k& R [ + J: x3 x4 K- L2 E8 V5 Y+ N oThey each received £1,000.& W' W# h7 ]3 M. _8 a8 r0 {$ `& \; a
, F( m% e, x( h" u4 \! d" S3 bThe 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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