Project description
Heat is already the deadliest type of (un)natural disaster in the United States and has major
impacts across New York, Paris, London. “Melting Metropolis: Everyday Histories of Health and Heat in London, New York, and Paris since 1945,” the Wellcome Trust-funded project of which I am Principal Investigator, interrogates historical attempts to secure physical and emotional health in unequitable sweltering urban environments. Melting Metropolis interrogates varied everyday experiences of, and responses to, urban heat and health. We have known about urban heat islands since Luke Howard’s pioneering studies in early nineteenth-century London, and more recent climate justice scholarship has clearly shown the uneven impacts of urban heat, but historians have yet to probe its history.
Heeding calls to attend to the materiality and social practices of urban life, this project will shed light on how high temperatures have affected communities differently and unequally, and how past policies and experiences shape contemporary attitudes and practices. During my Rachel Carson–Simone Veil Fellowship, I will work on an article on the history of urban climate resilience in New York, London, and Paris since the 1970s (when New York experienced a heatwave in 1972, and Paris and London in 1976) until the present day. To address Melting Metropolis’ research aims, the article will explore how the concept of “resilience” developed and changed over this period and across the three cities, and how it relates to other visions of heatwaves, from “fun in the sun” to deadly disasters.
Personal bio
I am Professor in Environmental History at the University of Liverpool, UK, and I have taught and researched for almost two decades on French history, European history, environmental history, and animal history. Originally specializing in French history, I completed a PhD on the environmental history of Vichy France, published as Scarred Landscapes: War and Nature in Vichy France (2008), and was postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC-funded project “Militarized Landscapes in Britain, France and the United States,” which led to Mobilizing Nature: The Environmental History of War and Militarization in Modern France (2012). I then became interested in urban and animal history, which led to my third book, Dogopolis: How Dogs and Humans made Modern New York, London, and Paris (2021). My next book, Collared: How we Made the Modern Dog, will be published by Profile in November 2024. I am currently Co-Investigator on the Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award “Remaking One Health: Decolonial approaches to street dogs and rabies prevention in India.” My next book, Collared: The Making of Modern Dogs, will be published by Profile in November 2024. I am also principal investigator on the Wellcome Trust-funded project “Melting Metropolis: Everyday Histories of Health and Heat in London, New York, and Paris since 1945.”