If you like Dalrymple’s work, you might be interested to hear what was his own favorite book of 2010. In the Globe and Mail, he participates in a symposium on this topic, and offers the following:

It’s Mao’s Great Famine (Bloomsbury), by Frank Dikotter. As subject matter for books, historical events that cause 45 million deaths tend to put others rather in the shade. Mao’s Great Leap Forward was such an event. Dikotter weaves together the high politics and individual suffering of these terrible years. Mao emerges as every bit the equal of Lenin and Hitler in his indifference to the deaths of millions. A party that claims apostolic succession to Mao has much to fear from the study of history.