0 A" e; l! a7 K* s; o2 v+ wMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize. k3 P$ U8 G4 _
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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. ! K- X7 p- D1 ]) n2 G: @# X 3 |5 o" b: g, _% H$ A) mMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.$ {! M/ j7 Q0 Q( w; A
8 r9 u% Y/ F U% Z' PChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".6 |6 P/ P7 \. y' N2 I4 f1 l, p
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". & U" ~6 R* L4 h% k5 m% U0 p2 V { 3 [9 h! @! ^- m! P# j7 b" OMao'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.# j$ y: f- f; |& H: ~3 }
) u$ t0 g' W2 u5 y+ HThe 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. : e: b5 A% Y& [ * h V( p4 o. T3 [- Q3 |" gThis 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. 6 q6 g/ `/ t. y: `& S & {( y: [; ~7 d# L1 {# [They each received £1,000.- ?1 D$ L9 c9 o5 m
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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.
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