8 C r$ x, p- ^: z7 zMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize8 A5 Y" l9 X' U% `, 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. 6 {. c: w1 m; N6 \$ X5 Z" l& @ , J7 q0 Y8 d) z: p9 b6 X tMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.& Y* g8 m9 [3 D7 h6 J8 ]7 e
" K1 _( l9 W; e# Y2 r2 mChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". ( n4 n& A1 J1 P% |; G* y; o5 \) [: Q& | 5 q, t A. M) q5 DHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 0 W. ]1 T. [6 q' d7 R3 l - m5 C1 l% R8 A9 o, 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. 5 u+ N8 M* O% \9 ~3 n \ : \3 r! F! q+ s% F5 ?2 }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. $ d `! l) _1 j- K8 U9 ~/ a0 Z* x; q: g4 ^
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.3 D. K: Z) @0 o! {! d/ T
- ~: j7 c! U0 K" p6 L, @9 KThey each received £1,000.( _: T. X& c6 c# B2 n$ t3 J& D8 V
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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.