3 h. b8 P& @$ e8 d6 a' F8 k& c* ^0 h. d, k8 w/ I 8 ]: \! r# \$ T6 k3 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。" h( D- X4 w$ ]! F
9 B! X! @- P3 V" o q5 a. a0 F4 ?Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize6 d( l" _7 @' I# E) }6 U
( `& ^2 z1 B' RA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. # c4 Y \! j9 P2 U! E& n6 { 8 n" n8 P. T F$ Z1 ~5 E; @; Q2 FMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.! E& p% r* ^2 r1 V. p" q
7 v1 z) [+ n# G- ~6 ?# t' S" AChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".* x8 M3 D3 [7 S3 P
; f. e7 S3 L8 c+ N$ }8 W
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 2 M9 J( s/ g- q9 Q) N9 M# k' W6 o- n% p' ]# ^
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. 9 C& t! q7 A2 g* O9 i- Q( x$ r0 K' B! g! S1 z. {9 y; W
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 m0 I' R8 U: c5 R* ?; `
! `& O. b; y V5 [) Q1 P1 T
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.* z! m% K2 O) @ g4 L+ O
$ p/ i+ x& a' T" l v5 c" f
They each received £1,000.) }1 J$ _1 k8 Q' |/ E6 @- @
7 z8 o* z0 n( T/ y y2 PThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
