) J- j3 |; V- h$ k, ^Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize6 t: s' j2 ~0 L
. J+ ]' i, L& u+ W, eA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.( i4 N: `& L6 ]
7 r9 D$ r( D& s; VMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. 3 X0 d1 _* ]+ Q, ]: d6 ~8 B5 y" T: T% f, r. m. X
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly"." \2 B7 ]% t1 p# E
' K! l* s5 u6 |7 [9 x3 KHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 5 c! k+ Y; A: ~ ( Z. R% X- B0 AMao'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./ b! |1 L7 `- |* j9 ?/ h7 m
9 P8 u( K; ]/ I1 qThe 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 L. W' {: t M) a( `' y& G7 s, w7 p& t; k( Y6 }* V4 w- H2 K
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.1 ^/ @( f" T% [; v
Y3 e5 x/ h- H. g0 EThey each received £1,000.# g' L( j2 o! S% `. U
$ }8 \$ I5 Z% N9 D* \9 ?$ y' E tThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.