% A# J; o6 z1 r3 S0 w1 j# zMao's Great Famine wins Samuel Johnson Prize . R0 T" |0 \9 [) L7 @) ~4 e1 x+ \0 i Y) c5 d
A book about China's disastrous Great Leap Forward policy has won the £20,000 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. b9 C: Y r5 Y' L4 T$ b
: J/ B7 {7 k* n% r
Mao's Great Famine, by Dutch historian Frank Dikotter, beat five other short-listed titles to the award.+ C! ]" i) T/ D; j
5 r$ o7 q8 l$ i1 sChair of the judges Ben Macintyre praised the book as an "epic record of human folly"., t8 c8 _$ I! S, b* Q2 K8 p- y
$ h9 s6 h u$ R" D4 ?He added it was "essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the history of the 20th Century". - R! I( l/ L: ^/ k$ [7 }# d1 H2 o& d
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. & X% o* P: \. S" G 6 }! N+ @3 L& ?" u; nThe 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.+ v$ z9 F6 {8 i) ]
# P) o9 l) f! z1 x6 J% 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.9 v+ t5 k2 J! Y2 O& y
. u, o+ E- i+ N$ L3 t
They each received £1,000. 5 P' o" s" a8 \8 a 5 e$ Y3 S* j) j, f8 k: u: V- Q3 h' MThe prize was open to non-fiction books published in English by writers of any nationality between 1 May 2010 and 30 April 2011.
