2 k9 Z+ v' c0 r$ a j* J! Z* |Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize $ y3 u1 P( N5 J3 T# j; U% s: o, [ * m9 F% I( x+ s: C$ A7 WA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. - v" Y+ ~) Z! Y M2 b$ R, | R 2 f' F4 o' @4 `( l+ A9 [" f4 @. eMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.1 l" a# n6 x0 C) ~ \/ G
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". 9 Z9 e: x1 V. H: H$ `. M4 \$ d! g* Y / n/ [+ b9 R1 Q7 eHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". % u) _: f0 T1 y& r6 O5 _ 4 q/ X+ \# K3 MMao'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. 3 q, o, A# u' g6 w0 x( w 1 B) {- `& X" I% ~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. ; }; d+ R- M8 y5 T. B( O9 X8 R* |3 v
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. 2 a3 R! w) {7 ]5 m+ k) `9 U* C4 ? , ~+ y7 k- K# z) V( TThey each received £1,000. @. y9 o; \7 O% Q4 r! {, r1 J1 Z8 W" ~
The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.