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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。3 \ T% l- {, o7 r* q
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize 8 z2 ]% X4 D1 y S- ]; M7 t! R% S0 B3 E: x
A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. 1 b6 J# _* Y2 X+ a* K+ A ; S9 M; @8 s- `2 \Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.4 J) k) V8 e& c7 s' N! a
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".! M% q" b9 k0 c- ]- {8 y: z; m
) S% R1 G6 }) P3 @" r1 m" D, c6 sHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 0 K" A0 J; N, l5 {9 {& O ( z) l! O2 h. T2 K, [: H, |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. / }5 U! k5 B8 L + j8 t3 O! G; @! ^8 H: ? ZThe 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.- f! S' j2 ?8 l( l' p: q' t6 K
* Y/ ?& v" m0 ^7 f/ EThis 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.: d) j! t$ I' o# X9 j. c
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They each received £1,000. 7 h$ O, i: r" b$ I 8 U& h5 t/ H$ M) ]; G( c! kThe 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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