3 z3 E' |& h; m, s- A! a! R, }! fMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize; ~& k. h) ^8 K+ ]: Y
9 g, P" e4 O) W5 T' X; DA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction., u" M2 U( s0 t- g& ]! Z, k7 p$ r
- p! I n8 t! r$ z D, ZMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. ; }$ o# E" H' {3 W3 o , l1 x3 D1 Z8 j. EChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly"., E( `4 q# i+ i& S& y0 h/ y
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 4 X$ d U3 z& A, Z. q9 `/ g, g" A. Y7 v* i" b
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. : s/ J" y0 L& k, a D, Y # k8 c0 O7 o, M, GThe 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.) |! i! a8 @% ^+ |9 L5 A1 i, h6 L
4 Z6 G9 b4 ^- {/ G' e* o( [2 hThis 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.8 D3 X9 s _* V' {4 V
/ q( u1 K& q c- G& {They each received £1,000. 2 k% x# W/ \7 ] . q& s0 v! Q' k8 }- f+ ?The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
