Fatal Isolation

Scholars of natural disasters willingly accept the premise that there is nothing ‘natural’ about them. Disaster studies have long established that the extensive human devastation caused by various ‘acts of God’ is largely the product of social causes in the midst of extreme circumstances. Until recently, historians have been reluctant to examine these episodes, leaving them to sociologists, epidemiologists and geographers searching for broader patterns amidst the destruction. Richard Keller draws on such research about the infamous August 2003 Paris heat wave but also brings a different perspective based in a keen historical insight. By situating the heat wave’s victims within the longer story of Paris’ past, Keller illuminates how historical forces at work in the city and its social fabric ultimately produced populations vulnerable to the heat. His analysis of the history of building construction and long-term patterns of residency among the poor, for instance, shows how Haussmann’s ‘modern’ city and accompanying economic redevelopment endangered victims over a century later as they baked in the chambres de bonnes of their buildings, just below the zinc roofs. His far-reaching discussion of French dismissiveness, even hostility, towards the elderly illustrates how this already isolated population became increasingly susceptible during the heat wave. The human costs of the rising temperatures can only be understood when set against deep-seated trends within French history. Keller also discusses many kinds of ‘marginal’ individuals by showing how they were pushed to the edges of French notions of citizenship, thus slipping through the cracks of a powerful Republican welfare state. Keller thus explores the particularities of the heat wave, not simply as another ‘natural disaster’, but as an episode with specifically French, and especially Parisian, characteristics.

Archaeology · Citizenship · Isolation (microbiology) · Natural (archaeology) · Nothing · Paternalism · Political science · Population · Premise · Sociology · Climate Change and Health Impacts · Demography · History · Law · Wind and Air Flow Studies

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