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冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。 , q* q; d' c& H$ A" ^9 @: e+ a: W) k1 v
Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize$ |0 p h% t: m$ y, J6 b/ ^
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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.& Y% w2 j& r% j* V3 }/ v0 o. n
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Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. 2 d5 L- V p2 m: K. {/ }; f, N1 f& g. u. v$ @2 o: e
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".1 [7 `) E. n" E7 D
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".$ n% N+ E5 A' @5 M0 D
* ]7 o, B9 N& q6 _( m! A2 N% _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.8 T5 a3 I4 c2 O
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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.9 l! w( w. H$ w& B. w
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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.1 f5 R" ~+ s. H% Q
) [% N; E' X O& ?4 i. l1 a5 bThey each received £1,000. ' M2 }; y+ @: u3 w8 i) I+ m5 a 8 D! ?; I1 X9 X# f* cThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
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