. k9 I' z% J8 e- ]Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize7 q7 n& [: D. D2 t) m
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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.' z4 S, K" S) l% m# K3 q/ _
. g6 m: H# J. C1 TMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. " a, D! {: h$ |& o8 W+ L ) k" v: I$ X7 MChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".7 d' K) y9 V2 B5 o" U
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". ) ?# X x' q$ G% P4 ^: u: `$ \1 A. F8 }+ C6 i. c
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. ( ^( I: C- }& m2 j/ _) z0 Y/ M) Z0 h% s9 s7 @2 p! p. @" Z
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.$ E2 n/ I( O# ]# q `& V4 h
, a' n j |6 b' t5 e" ]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.$ K8 Y: Y: \# G& w# \
0 A3 l2 w% z- ~# ]0 l, \$ {0 `They each received £1,000. 0 E* `8 c5 M+ a' R: h9 F9 m+ ^$ @! {& y7 |: v# W- ^, Z% L
The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
