, M5 u& Z9 y0 z$ q9 E* X/ W* W冯克现任香港大学教授，是不多的几个获准可以利用中国官方历史档案的学者之一。 * B& a# ?# Q0 c4 H# B3 b / w* E- e& w; M9 c塞缪尔·约翰逊奖是一个面对世界各国学者的非小说类英文作品的文学奖项，奖金为两万英镑。 U4 a! C g" I# z& Z! a$ u6 a' |# A- r! T' E4 v' R
) G2 r% O/ k" H5 O( F+ l : q; a! A+ n6 g+ v- y冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。 ' E: T# P# x# M7 y8 Q$ U6 P " C0 h" c7 e# l/ |0 z$ V+ }) AMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize & y% E6 R- y9 V/ N" ]1 ~- R# P0 i5 c" v2 b) ~0 b) M
A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.6 B; a5 N# f) x; t' f
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Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. 0 w6 y1 [& `) R; B4 n. M# r7 S1 i% ^$ H& l _2 y6 R
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". |( z& m4 W! P9 l( s* C3 e7 }1 M: a& ^( E
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". ) B; a6 Y% t( J c. m1 A& ^* H8 G6 S6 Q; }" y" r+ z
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. 7 b1 R6 F" ~2 }$ B! K % H m/ G! ]; L+ C4 l1 n2 X! [2 _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." g/ O7 W% M' |, K" b
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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. " Y/ ~! G R( }$ m , T. G: B' h! L! i8 nThey each received £1,000. 3 K0 }$ u% f7 p% v* e# I/ Z0 W9 [5 |- C9 w. |% P) U
The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
