: P" b+ h! G7 X, SMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize / W% \0 ] X/ q% E/ b$ I; ^& X. f i: C* P h3 |6 c; O* @, ]
A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. 1 R( Q0 r0 V0 U' I" a0 H2 a1 J8 F
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.; M% n" Y* |, v3 G2 B
. x+ o: S5 E& E* ~( b- E Y: U5 bChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". " T2 U# W b7 K- u+ C; Y; l6 b% p% R2 T5 B
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 0 w1 x6 k9 J) M8 y' ~" s' T& x P2 f* {+ X- c
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. ( U2 ^; Z% u1 [! ? o' X* u# l" K4 f( r& K( a4 @: J3 X/ o
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.& A6 K: P4 m- B* G+ D# U: i: q
0 T' b% }5 v, |* r! V1 e7 U
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. ' Y1 @% U y; O( j, l( U! d" `$ I$ a; _$ L* A Y+ p* m
They each received £1,000.3 J3 C8 e: L- w8 p( x4 `
8 B) r! R* [' H! t, pThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.