* _, H: [3 G4 |( T! [' C5 a ) ]# D9 H- L, s' R5 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。 5 c: J. y- Q! E! r& {4 Q' Z7 E5 V( ], b/ q* d6 y
Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize7 q% ?3 x8 w! m6 C0 ]
* @5 V P: w% v2 C, AA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.! \/ \3 ~) ^$ m' Q* k3 o
8 U# W' ~1 e8 @+ T
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. 4 l/ ^' a' V: @. a1 }0 U . y K C" Q- D$ `2 Q! v8 U6 Q! GChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". + E* L* P0 p: j9 e) k7 Z: L4 h. F3 j" [) u! h3 Z: x# M
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". ' Z4 D* D, l" i# P ( I. @5 q3 s H' W3 ^: T4 O1 KMao'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.# c, g7 h: O w2 F! S P
- U) ?( h/ K! g/ L8 f) cThe 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.+ h+ L& O W9 T: c# f
" w5 }: i8 M9 `6 l2 [# 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. " n _7 X9 p V8 [, w! R% T ~: E c7 ^) y* ]4 d- sThey each received £1,000. B2 x0 O7 _5 ]
; w3 }! s1 c s1 _3 G$ F) a
The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
