. d* Q2 g2 l5 Y- z1 F& M3 r9 ]Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize; J$ L6 B- p7 x3 W
' f4 w% H3 k2 O) XA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. / F) H$ n/ ?, n; T% f0 {. S: U2 r, C6 p& [) o' V; [4 a8 n
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.6 v/ G/ I1 {: z( {
* Z2 |: }- g( y. N+ m) M- eChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". & l9 g9 R" L; A, J8 G) C1 z1 S( P* B' K8 v. t' ]) T
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".7 p; U7 a O# U; b3 ]# C
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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. 3 {( j" l: S8 U5 ~! K: p2 B- j; U! h9 L* p% }* H
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.! Y' p2 q1 n& n; z
. Q- E1 E' W6 M* [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.- s/ t+ B" t5 |" Q# P9 X
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They each received £1,000., y0 j$ i; |# @
# {9 Y2 n. [. E# W% C, t, hThe 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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