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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。 . b, |6 b; m/ v( V& S - d u3 m: Q3 ZMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize+ m; z5 j/ q8 E
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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. , E7 n' _7 ~5 u3 J, ? 4 d- c. P, ~/ @. S3 O- n& sMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. . p* S! `, X5 e# I . `: v% s; b; d a# K4 C. B* S) aChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". 7 s: \6 U. c8 \& Z6 g' Q+ {; _ {# ^6 W8 B/ f
He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".' H( ~5 c0 p2 { s9 G: u& n% w' A9 k
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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.6 z! ?& r0 T7 }+ u7 [+ z% p0 ~9 q
) F/ E0 X1 E0 d# B$ lThe 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.+ ^9 h5 ^! r2 ]0 V! {
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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. H2 m+ \# x7 {+ q
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They each received £1,000.8 V# y4 I2 d; P7 |
# B. V, k( \* i& Y6 C* Z( e7 ~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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