$ s* U+ s2 _. R( \+ X7 v! n+ z; Q1 V0 l8 {1 n) V+ C6 h1 ]& d B" I' e' _- k. w# Y9 A8 R& v冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。 6 L! }: x2 `# ~4 y, D- n1 n! k5 ?+ J4 _8 G
Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize7 j9 t- K' M3 }" _/ V- w" _
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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. 3 y% l( ]& l: e' Y! `, S8 _! T2 y7 S# `- r
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. 1 y* Z9 f9 G! s' x' c1 O! R# Y$ o1 l# ]& \
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". 3 u$ Y4 J8 y$ V- L r( K; ?. |- \& o4 f J! \! NHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".4 H+ M$ _; B+ t
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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. $ ~- q0 w7 W5 B+ C) n- w+ S * L! D( C) Q+ ]" W5 BThe 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. % K! Y6 \' f6 Q0 r/ j6 r6 O$ R0 U
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.1 R- R* {( j: n% T n Y6 n
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They each received £1,000.2 Y+ G! B2 w0 {8 d
" c" [7 x6 B- bThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
