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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。$ |! z* k# ~! ?, H) x! C# F! q
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize. {; M" W4 ?- ]( Y3 r) Q h
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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.; p& h7 M$ Q5 S& U
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Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.7 e+ g. b+ ^; G
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". : S [# j$ i- J9 R , T3 m. \. m0 g/ ]# ?5 X' t" }He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". / ^& m2 t; X$ U) ]; p, [8 K ) U3 A. s4 N1 c6 aMao'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" n! A' ~7 \/ q8 I# f B9 l $ z) A _3 [/ {& Y8 P# QThe 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.& c2 I% h' E5 C: T+ g9 p- u
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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. 6 e+ J4 Q/ J- a$ R4 M: \1 e' d # J% `- B2 T( m+ b4 QThey each received £1,000.0 l3 z# Q% J1 Y' j% w
3 e5 F3 o# B, v3 N( ?+ Q# C# @0 wThe 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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