* s$ V, |, U9 ]5 S( Q, m( uMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize 8 M$ V w4 Z" Y0 C% G. i8 P( a1 c# K' P2 `6 J. ], p& B$ }
A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. & X$ F9 [7 I1 z5 K7 f1 I6 @7 L2 \! n" ~( L7 D
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. 2 c1 `! [7 p5 R: o9 T + y, n1 M9 L# I7 L% `: M( KChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". k8 o( y& C/ U) b
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century"." p& M. X/ D* I$ k) g a
& n" i0 j4 P# Z+ O5 D5 I/ p ZMao'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.* I, C1 z7 s) a
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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. $ Z% @1 A$ ?7 s 0 } ^* Z) r% T9 v5 x9 n2 U a! ]4 ^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., b+ C0 @/ L* }9 C$ i7 w2 m. d
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They each received £1,000. & O* r' F, r6 y" H8 m: i( y ! C0 r, N- S8 I4 C' PThe 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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