' e8 U+ a6 q0 d; I x/ ` ( k* H; j' R5 h" l; j1 p 6 Y& B% H! Z& k1 R" X6 F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 ~) E9 e$ }3 P3 W4 C! U* n7 J4 E : h/ ~0 s5 V4 [+ r2 K- S, eMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize % Q& S) [! @, s2 x3 }9 r) M$ n/ e( H6 q; b2 r
A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. * Q- p) M U/ D" r/ h5 M4 n4 F# \6 X- `8 H. i) z. k# d
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. # S2 {/ T" v) L* A! k3 M$ V. f/ O4 g* L. A' O
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". ; \. S# P3 M, M7 [- w+ r r# Q+ |, L, g: h- a
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".$ Y8 r- O4 l2 p& l4 r9 n2 O* _
! m7 G' g1 W' D3 o3 CMao'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.; B! v% m: q! h: x) x
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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. + |) u% O t9 j4 q1 }3 r4 X7 S U7 Y+ a/ D" y, s
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.; j A. E/ U: B. W) d" O
9 c$ r d: y* I1 N% D3 z% @They each received £1,000. , ?9 Y9 o+ ?+ A% I9 M, s , d+ ?/ X+ p/ e1 l& cThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
