`) I! |6 q6 h2 R& K; f ( U5 _: A" S8 Q, X% B" A L+ V) z# v- @. w冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。 : W# X% N+ S$ Q& v9 I5 R 3 n! S) q9 K/ JMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize+ n, B# m& N& k- _4 I I
3 [ ~* G, P. p( _6 {A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.! t: {9 j+ d% w
! a5 M' r! y& n/ k3 n' TMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.% x8 W N4 c0 ]' ?0 S+ h6 t* E8 t0 ]
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".* G/ r" w4 K# Z
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".1 X, k0 _' M% y6 b. D& {6 R8 F
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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.7 [4 D+ s# C# N& C8 H. P' f
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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.0 d4 Q6 r9 y$ R( F* [2 K/ x
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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. ) M) B! L' O" s: {- y 0 [9 a) ~5 |: _5 F( M+ E9 ZThey each received £1,000.! z' O7 ^/ f7 @$ J# p+ f
" e( x" x- a t% MThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.