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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。/ Q3 I; M4 f" ^& T9 X
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize( w: W, R5 [ b7 g4 O9 \+ N
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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.* f5 |: h8 a' V6 R
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Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. 0 \1 A% x3 i0 {6 Z) X0 Q8 I( Q4 } + P7 j7 J! H* V. i6 [9 y* ZChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". ; C: }6 |& g4 }( W. n" {5 ~7 _/ }
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".4 W) i F! a3 Q
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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. * j: B4 t# @2 t+ O6 t+ N( \' o+ z- h e* J! u
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.( E. ~7 z! I$ T; H# K
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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. & t9 @6 n& i; @4 S+ n+ G1 }/ V& A, N1 l/ E( C
They each received £1,000.1 S% V4 \# A& ~* m. z3 h0 h0 T
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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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