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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。0 h% v" i# K6 s8 |% M9 ?
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize' X- i/ G" G$ ]% ~
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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.) h. j) q1 _) s& T7 A" ?: U# m
0 v* `* X' i& d# \3 x: \6 _Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award., J& R' ]+ }: F
: F x- u$ M& x" j, u hChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".6 Z- P6 b* a- {5 U
8 T ~3 C1 g7 R! w8 RHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".9 Z; r1 c( O+ O- g* T/ v( f
; p& W$ Z0 M! ]# WMao'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./ Y8 I+ ], A E2 N2 X( f
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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." G1 q, ] ]% t& P5 G
+ _! d. S5 f! Z9 ~4 ]" IThis 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. $ ~( h) Z! I5 y 3 h& s2 J. f' p1 q5 v" t8 HThey each received £1,000.6 n. C0 |" n' s/ ?6 k* i$ ~
% m8 B; a4 o* }! f# S. VThe 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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