/ W5 P3 A8 u$ W- J1 T9 Q+ C! \Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize: u1 [4 u n; d1 A0 G& }9 }
6 |' M( r! F* ~$ c6 x3 yA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. 8 C; F" L. T* ?" h; t2 T+ P& y/ H8 \/ ]' K! Z& y% A
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.& x' w" x& i* X1 B9 v8 W, [& M; S
# F) O# _2 ~: \6 r W' e7 B: _Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". # F* _) @6 f2 R' `) i7 d$ f9 g2 S
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".3 z h- S& h8 q8 N2 h3 T: z* ~
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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. , o) Z2 o+ G3 \& S3 Y/ N; \8 X/ h1 H1 b
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., w5 w2 k$ {- Z. f9 w/ f
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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. ; g! O1 G) P% ?9 o4 Z/ u$ ?4 P 1 i; I* U7 I9 P6 ~. F+ `% PThey each received £1,000.$ G# V/ ~" I9 T8 f
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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.
