Marc Landry, associate professor of history at the University of New Orleans, has received the Baker-Burton Award for his book Mountain Battery: The Alps, Water and Power in the Fossil Fuel Age, published by Stanford University Press. The award recognises the best first book in European history by a scholar based at a Southern US institution.
The Baker-Burton award committee cited the book’s detailed history of hydropower development in the Alps. The committee noted that the book critically assesses hydropower’s role by comparing it with coal and oil, highlighting hydropower’s contributions to industrial growth, energy supply, and military infrastructure in West-Central Europe.
The book documents how dam construction in the 19th and 20th centuries transformed the Alps into a major energy storage and generation hub for Europe. Based on archival research in Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland, and Italy, Landry’s work outlines the environmental, economic, and strategic implications of using hydropower during periods of industrialization and war.
Landry serves as the Marshall Plan Professor in Austrian Studies and directs the Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies at UNO. He specialises in environmental history with a focus on modern Europe. His prior work has appeared in Environmental History and the Journal of Global History, and he has held research fellowships from engineering, museum, and academic institutions.
