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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。1 _2 S9 ^( b% k. r
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize% I& V8 e' \! J2 B
% f8 V) {1 `3 |A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.- V9 M+ u& {" C
6 f% B( F' W/ B7 T4 c6 ZMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. $ T; j7 a3 t7 F1 [; S$ q# T" Q) c8 u" t' h; d7 B
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".0 L/ ?6 i: U4 F5 x7 B) d
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". . g1 O. c; K7 k7 V5 R' j6 K3 b9 C: d; R
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.& {0 A, _4 |( L1 {0 Y
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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.6 F0 S' K" q* t+ {0 h
; ~5 E" \4 ?0 J* c$ s6 ?$ f8 LThis 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. ) }2 c1 `+ I. \. y8 o- {: b1 ?; L, m; a: l) ] l
They each received £1,000.; I; d# S2 `# {5 O$ s& O. ~
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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.
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