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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。. C( U: n) [5 l7 B/ h. s. c: T
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize 8 m5 L0 N7 I8 _+ S/ Z1 I2 \ : @5 t$ r; p1 R5 S& gA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. : L& C% H" G! E ! E% s, w# }4 G0 b, M4 @" @Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. ; u" R0 m, n; ]; `0 |. e3 Q, _: ^$ D" [
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".* [7 |3 K: `2 e9 _
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century"., G, z( `! a0 v# D* F% @
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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.2 y' B: J# q @( \
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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- f7 I( {7 r2 o8 T
3 `$ I4 P+ V! `& Z( bThis 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. r- P; n) b0 E+ D
4 ?2 M/ O4 K$ [They each received £1,000.4 t9 X$ l3 V% k! C* S
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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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