# t- `4 f9 ^) {8 H9 ` 9 L$ D0 u8 h8 t/ w) 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。 5 R; d6 f& ^- O$ | A0 [% ?' C" i7 B: r+ ~/ ~* \# ]
Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize8 D. Y8 x5 m7 f
$ n4 }1 Q4 x- k! `' V9 V% zA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.. P' ?/ a: N0 W, r q- a O
7 M8 I& d3 z4 J/ q% ~( X; {Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. , B5 z3 ? P# g+ k* j$ C$ L [ " X' U0 m5 } g0 WChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly"., d; w- d' e' o
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". ! @9 z' F) D4 [% z4 ]' e' A) O# d. k. o/ |0 _2 ~
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.- w& M+ {( j8 V" |1 m1 `
& g: P; U1 G8 j) tThe 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.9 G$ V8 D! j7 ^
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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. 7 r3 [: c* z7 D8 D 8 _3 r E: j% e5 q& F$ KThey each received £1,000." H# t' z0 ^: W) c2 N4 ~
4 p5 M9 R, f( K8 O0 tThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
