1 p3 q1 R: d+ k. | t% h- B; [' |# h, W: b + w2 h# D# Q4 n% x5 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。 ' s# V z+ G: {0 h ?7 H: @/ U* j7 g5 i6 O9 x% u& b0 @- h
Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize" ^) h6 i7 Y3 F4 \& \( T
, S8 h$ z# \: r9 g9 p5 c$ V3 wA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. ( M$ N6 H- Y8 v: M+ }, f$ F, R/ g5 W# R0 y! @- ]) W3 } D" g
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.- |; l7 J# X3 R, v8 _: v
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Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly". 4 q: u! D! x% z. Q3 ]/ A. f# l2 b / A( T$ ?, k9 h/ XHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". 1 H* t& D7 W. ~% G, |# [ ' O; o- m* X- R" 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. / |2 K; B9 ]$ {# m) F" x$ J , ~1 R k0 w; [) } 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.8 C0 a5 Z8 a+ B/ L
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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 z |( L# I2 I- L) l- _1 X: f. T# k/ r) y
They each received £1,000.: j; \3 U l1 M/ v4 f
( O6 O! Q6 m; g: s! j" jThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.