" P0 d9 v& p; g/ lMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize8 {9 R1 T7 z2 S
, c- z& n$ b; gA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.( a. Q0 W3 ~* V: H! C( N
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Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. ) n6 e- \; `% y( D# `" J* \ - N9 A( O: e/ d9 I; LChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".: J. L+ y- U$ w3 ^
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". : d8 j8 a2 E9 W' C6 ]! d: `8 O. y
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. * [6 a5 \6 s( ^/ ]& A, t$ E( v' n e# }. o* C+ D+ OThe 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. # t( ^6 a9 H, P7 f ; x# t+ P$ I# ]2 b( k- o: D, lThis 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.8 s' D' T% ~& J+ l, P
3 u8 ^% l1 v% w( O: qThey each received £1,000. 9 |7 z+ x! r" X% X( u2 y1 | 1 \ i/ s) b0 M, T8 `6 y( W4 DThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
