$ l# y! h' A, R( t% L; `% b4 e6 n% `* p% E D; } 1 c& v3 U2 b- E4 n, h! h冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。$ F6 e9 y6 }6 J- a9 I/ k4 [* f1 _9 i
# Q2 w4 {4 i: ZMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize4 p7 O, q- m9 f3 L& j
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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. + u8 I- d T$ p! ^# Y/ P w, v, g0 Y7 ^& X
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award." u7 a( \, e2 ~% b7 I
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".& W" f- }/ A$ P
# E3 [1 C7 D* K5 S& d# {9 BHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".6 _. C2 l9 g5 G8 C* R0 Z
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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.5 u, V- y" A' N6 N1 k
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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./ |/ l' T3 g: ?5 j0 Q
6 G" ~6 ~, }( j3 X* h) p, I" nThis 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. 8 y4 p9 f6 g6 G5 {1 U6 G; _. C+ r- @! n( f! C
They each received £1,000., s+ R5 ^) f4 H$ W# _1 \8 t
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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.
