z. w& _0 T+ W- i7 AMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize5 v5 Q) M5 l( w3 V5 Q; _
l9 I j# m2 L* R! F7 gA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. ( l/ q" \% E4 W! f # F& y# Z! v' ], uMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.5 _" k8 Q" V! K* [$ r
& P A8 C( g0 v( J: f- \Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". % S0 m, x3 D( i5 r ! q: }- U3 z* R" b: c: ]He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".4 t, \2 [- S0 |. N2 S T! m' w) a
# h! ]& r( o* |, @+ o |
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.6 ^; E/ W" y3 D3 Z/ `% N
0 I, V! r' e( W3 B2 c
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.( v$ W6 O( }$ I+ a, R. a2 Z
0 G: ]1 G( Z0 g: B! qThis 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 c6 D9 c7 x, }$ V. E9 f
5 J; [1 z% Z" Z. s; c4 V8 a
They each received £1,000. g( R0 N& o# q" }' B4 K; P' _
4 q; t# A1 @) p8 j) {
The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.