5 o$ V2 @& J5 ]7 j3 c5 @冯克现任香港大学教授，是不多的几个获准可以利用中国官方历史档案的学者之一。, z7 v5 }9 y% ]7 U i; J1 g Y9 l
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塞缪尔·约翰逊奖是一个面对世界各国学者的非小说类英文作品的文学奖项，奖金为两万英镑。* r( g: D7 x- @& I
( G8 l& M% ^9 ]5 U, K: H k7 y3 ?: L2 M+ e - G/ a6 X/ c+ Q, }; o+ Q* z2 z冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。 , C5 m: y6 _- G! J2 p3 ^% \/ \0 [7 p8 o
Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize+ \9 d2 J, e8 Y( W+ q8 n
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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.' S' N- j a6 u
0 i. Q( R j1 I- w' }6 t: bMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.( l$ |2 j3 c; J$ g r
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". 9 u3 U$ X7 O% S0 c/ r; y 1 J' ^. f R+ [9 r6 hHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 5 I5 @: I) s6 P( O5 I { # a2 j, _5 \- E: N& EMao'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.1 R q+ v1 Y$ i
$ B4 @' ]6 F# y) c5 t/ g. ^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. + m) E1 P( }/ N$ N" u. s - W* d3 O( I( \6 X3 ]1 F/ Y" A+ qThis 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.) x a; j& z3 d3 p" Y$ p T
9 A& m& X# Z4 z( m- {0 oThey each received £1,000." c0 y Q4 s' k- ]
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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.
