+ Q9 h" Q6 E, I" O [ & h8 u$ z8 w- H* L冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。) s$ ~, v7 ]0 i4 L& j) N
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize1 |1 `' `) `* w W1 Q1 b" Q, 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. 6 h& W8 M7 d0 a6 H! L" s' v8 f( E ' |4 M3 i" t8 F6 o1 f* OMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award., y4 x# k X+ ]! k1 o
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".$ u: t' \+ y3 K* P6 r0 m
) ^ t& f( x- d" B* }He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 7 p3 L% n# X- L \. k 0 I; D6 M; _* u, M, s4 RMao'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. " Z' o q" W8 T' d x$ k% H! _8 G) l" L: o% l& k; R4 Z4 b: P9 {
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.6 y# ?" j# Y" w2 O
( s! {: \& W2 ^+ f7 XThis 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. ( W% J% H8 s5 `+ `" o! }. Z0 I* h" p8 v+ i& `
They each received £1,000. . E; O# C4 r+ V $ O# W( O T- P3 [) e6 AThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
