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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。 , x! x% H7 Y8 L 8 [( b1 g9 U/ b0 L5 X' RMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize" k: g" i0 D& L8 `% c
8 `' O; Y o% P6 F: G, P) x' ?& DA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. 5 `, U/ H% q% l6 W8 s5 C5 Y. ~ / d. |# ~! h0 F. e/ ~Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.: b2 H, d) k! G0 h8 ?2 c! _" H
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". ; `* f* _ T8 b3 V) Z" q' D. _ 8 n5 e' ?& e/ k6 F& G- r: l) PHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". & k2 o7 p( n, R& g : l5 ~( l7 J9 I: w( }& x" gMao'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 y* O* N- k N8 T
; }2 V1 i2 s8 V8 u$ _/ {$ gThe 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.& l6 \" o% _1 I) q# E. C7 c
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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.+ [+ q" B v4 y) y! G" ^2 q
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They each received £1,000. 1 N* w: e& k& q( m$ i& l* q+ Z2 M- ~& a
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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