' W) y! q% ?$ b7 U冯克现任香港大学教授，是不多的几个获准可以利用中国官方历史档案的学者之一。1 d5 ^. K- U6 a1 j* D$ a
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塞缪尔·约翰逊奖是一个面对世界各国学者的非小说类英文作品的文学奖项，奖金为两万英镑。' h8 g" L& ?0 E9 i: q2 h5 Z; k
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4 X& B' Q, O2 Y2 ? ( `9 Z; U' u% {- Q# Y冯克是为数不多获准使用中国历史档案的外国学者之一。6 C0 R- A/ I. m7 D; m' ]
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Mao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize + X; s! ?5 E+ {* W 2 i8 u/ e, B" e8 j j( f- D/ }) ]# oA book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.# f8 {) \, i. b+ ~
o1 ]' j4 K/ P1 j% G) `Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award. % y. x( t/ [: l; Y, G" I8 B2 R' P8 H1 R, S! Z! z' B; N
Chair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly".4 ]. `3 G2 |; C; s5 H
3 ~1 Y; d1 A7 N' x2 M( RHe added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century".$ S5 ]3 [9 J2 H+ y. X
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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./ O3 h2 g0 b! m; ~5 ?% J
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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. 9 Z( r5 X% E2 ?1 U5 v; L! p& V t1 _9 K4 p; g( ^
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.; f! s" H- ^8 _: K% X2 O7 Q$ N) z' @7 X1 f
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They each received £1,000.# b9 u, v8 ~) \2 q
% n/ G+ D/ S, E* LThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
