) N$ `% V6 q/ B 5 I5 \8 Y) q6 V2 q6 j6 F6 u冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。: A+ ?. b* {" q! J% m7 I# \6 F* k6 z
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize+ u! ^0 k. a [3 q) r, I
0 y' f3 ?% g1 QA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.4 }' Z1 w) o$ X- A1 F5 I
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Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.( G! j4 \7 R3 y- i
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". / i; k' B* B( `2 I1 w2 |+ y. o+ w4 a2 A- T
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". % A N5 W. I D/ L7 V9 w0 \ * @8 f: [+ [8 t+ I8 ^1 ^ w) iMao'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.# d# E7 J% r8 }5 |1 u
: i$ V1 z) i- A: |' i u+ B( q: 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. ; ~6 [1 w2 F' S: Q4 k7 i , b" _9 ~% x9 L; b' s6 X, p: EThis 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.* P: R& m8 O" @) d' I" Q
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They each received £1,000.2 l9 U2 h* F, k% G1 ~: A
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The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
