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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。" o1 A6 {7 m1 Y
7 @& A( @0 v, E+ dMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize - g6 r7 |4 @0 G: S7 O' c7 F3 m8 M" s # m. ?0 |7 ?" T& r& j$ U! F r1 DA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. Z7 z1 ?5 i1 a4 \" R: N% b @+ j# `3 S+ v) B+ |
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. & c/ T) Y8 _( z; ]5 Z8 q* h2 G' {* D& v' J& B- \1 W
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". , s, r4 _2 d3 b% d5 l# M0 i& g ; x1 Y; i h8 A- _( z# IHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century"., F2 w! W- K, O$ {9 O9 x2 f
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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. $ x- F3 C) B/ n% `8 O" ?8 {$ I
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.. _8 v2 L# e% Y
2 }$ Y6 G% x' d4 G1 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.3 q- M! Z0 I( f" A
/ ?8 U5 }( R0 ~2 p# I( @/ `/ O qThey each received £1,000. 4 [% X! z, Y( O5 ` ^" S ( e1 |- F' w3 U3 E4 M! L& lThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.