8 N( d- Z! E/ w, O6 @$ [1 S, L + {( z/ {: f) x# D1 a3 G冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。: d1 v7 ~7 a# s( P' w
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize: ?1 s6 v( ]5 Y3 C$ Y
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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. ' {& a/ l! C( N0 c. \+ u 1 h2 @. U; t; F2 d* W! qMao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. : i4 H# n+ |' [8 Y3 x' P9 E8 R7 U6 a4 a4 A6 x8 D" @
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".& Q- f1 C/ |8 r5 d! M7 W
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He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".# z2 g4 B8 t9 p5 V+ v* L/ c
8 T8 u# v1 p8 e( 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. 6 I/ `9 M1 Z1 L$ }5 `( |- o, g) h5 {0 h, U( f: n: @: a
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.3 z: e0 Y5 L& ~% Q2 \, T
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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. * |1 {1 P- k. Z+ t1 `: ?/ B T& b; ]. [8 t8 i8 Y8 `9 Q
They each received £1,000.5 Z( q0 c8 C: u/ c( g1 E
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The prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
