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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。; @/ }( ^) r$ J' z5 u' k4 I
~" V( p. \5 [) u: z) j+ N5 TMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize 8 N/ x/ d* k3 ^# J f$ s 2 Z+ H$ I9 q; r8 a' WA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.3 r- ^! H- ^+ \- F: J0 S
$ s4 B1 h! Z6 C" N4 ^& k5 T. zMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.6 t& p3 g& L/ s5 N4 G% d+ `
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".4 Q3 u! {" B& W! ?+ I
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". - q1 ~5 g. H3 ~3 A1 q/ R 6 ~$ Q7 [/ S# I% {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.0 K p& S/ p3 F7 f, e, D* H
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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. : @0 _, _; X/ j' n8 B7 y5 B k$ ~5 H4 p; C \3 b8 u! \( e* ~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. ( M- W( r& H" }1 v/ R! d% Z( m% ?; x% R
They each received £1,000. # U; d+ p' i, w% _9 W2 a* ~4 l( D8 v9 Q; U% k
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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