& R4 d( \3 f/ ]# Q$ |) ?5 V. x 0 C% ?" Z2 `+ x" l ' Y- E- r6 p! P9 K, @1 z7 ^冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。 e) P- \' Q+ X' e N# J- z- n1 M0 O: w: L: @! c
Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize1 M9 D/ E( v0 U
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A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. ) e% K6 u7 \7 ~5 p 0 c' [6 f/ W) O& P+ UMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.5 v, s! c5 `" f1 p6 B0 D
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".7 R! }( D$ j. { o' _6 P1 D
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". ' c! ^4 v, U; E! N F3 ]/ ^ 2 A C$ J' Z6 U6 i$ B' H+ n1 J0 I3 eMao'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. D; d- i7 e( y1 d {, F5 N; V$ W h/ ]9 F
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. 1 r' w9 Y) o8 ]- ^+ G ' L' g3 J8 I/ |6 z+ q1 |. h: K7 uThis 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. $ |0 h% N0 w* `, t3 ^9 e( y" J Z! O/ s: W
They each received £1,000.$ K/ l+ P( J9 j4 T* g" J# B8 o
- r- R! J1 n7 LThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.