The 2003 ESEH Publication prize was won by the young and promising scholar Stéphane Frioux, a student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Lyon, France. Stéphane won the prize for his article entitled, “Assainissement urbain et vie politique à Limoges, 1849-1914”, which was published in Cahiers d’histoire vol. 47, no. 1-2, 2002, 73-92.

The ESEH Publication Prize Committee was very impressed by this very elegant and analytically rich article on a dirty topic. Frioux examines how different efforts to clean up the city of Limoges were articulated, negotiated, and failed or succeeded in the political sphere during the period from 1849 to 1914. The article is based on a wide array of sources, is clearly written, and will enrich not only European urban environmental history, but environmental history at large.

Stéphane was awarded a certificate and a three set copy of the Encyclopedia of World Environmental History, which was generously made available by Berkshire Publishing.