: c& C0 R% U/ P' x冯克现任香港大学教授,是不多的几个获准可以利用中国官方历史档案的学者之一。: x# Q" m" Y! `2 r. c( y0 p9 K
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塞缪尔·约翰逊奖是一个面对世界各国学者的非小说类英文作品的文学奖项,奖金为两万英镑。 # A% Y8 v8 V- M6 l3 Z1 \/ P$ ~ 7 O3 O- a; g9 W8 [" `# [1 l, s, T0 x' X3 U. N% l5 n# u 9 O% z2 f+ X! ]% b4 y- D' O冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。6 X" u& Q; I; U& f Z# m3 h
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize4 x( J/ j" g) e! r4 K$ B
+ j7 e! d! w9 F: }" d+ P1 jA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. 2 g& h; q2 ?+ N' V5 j: Y: H6 t% h5 _$ L8 A" ?4 e4 I
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. ~- k4 O1 s* V3 S3 w7 u$ [# m# D+ @1 g! l7 g0 Z
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". : O" E$ g7 W8 w 9 ~* F- ?& V: @3 P1 b$ b: oHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".6 c! s9 X9 d* D! y9 z7 p
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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., i4 _ h. |* f4 c9 {4 E( K, e
# {1 k# F u1 e) ~& ?% {& F6 PThe 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 }* O0 q4 A1 e: B8 T! x4 ~& Z/ u* E' O
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." X" y3 J6 n$ _. i! Z5 E! x# V
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They each received £1,000. W. |) \5 @& ?0 I. ]: P: ?6 S
+ `) Y' I* m; WThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.