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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。' Q: P1 B" i# e+ H: z
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize1 w- x, i! K' y7 d+ Q, Z& M
" j0 O2 j9 G9 a% X' m. [' IA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.. y; A. d0 j/ O
a9 i0 _8 h- F. x. p @: a/ e! aMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.1 T0 i, z9 }! B5 p2 \
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". {4 }- ~% p; {; a # W" D4 @5 |. s1 C( K V/ xHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". , @1 Y; p1 z2 l: V' }2 F+ e7 N" G* X; l! v# u" ?
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." P; ]: {4 W+ }7 Q3 U0 ?4 f
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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. 6 n- }7 l$ ^: K# v7 V& }3 M& u5 r- _- l6 l8 P+ I) L, Y
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." p- [: q7 e1 H+ W- Z9 K( _
! i* \0 o J6 B* S& \6 P0 Y4 E3 x. ^They each received £1,000. 7 W a5 s! i" i# z O ~ F# q$ M; W! j
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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