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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。4 m0 ?. t, q$ h5 t3 _
) g( b) G- f3 MMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize $ Q9 B/ }# R& c7 r3 `( J, e- X, I0 i0 E' a. P _1 e
A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.. l7 c: N5 K$ A
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Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. ; r2 E+ l8 t4 L* x u/ D; D/ i9 |% S- _6 W$ ` B, P
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". " z$ e! u9 f, C6 V* v - t; y9 R9 O! l. uHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 1 s# K7 }# h7 L& K ) p# L- D. v$ q: tMao'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.! M3 B1 T& c' e- h9 P9 V: _/ l! U
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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. ( |* h8 j+ g' I3 f# N: {# \$ d- J& T% o+ E% @0 U, p
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. 5 p. L0 x; x$ L6 F% N2 \ ( E' Q9 e: T* w$ w, x- ^They each received £1,000. - ~! c J$ p- } , s; q- K4 Y& ?" T) j( y3 BThe 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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