My first book, La ruée vers le sable : une histoire environnementale des plages de Los Angeles au XXe siècle (2020), recounts the formidable beach modernization campaign that transformed Los Angeles into one of the world’s greatest coastal metropolises, revealing how the city’s man-made shores served as a central locus for the reinvention of seaside leisure and the triumph of modern bodies. Integrating environmental, cultural, and social history, La ruée vers le sable not only uncovers how the Los Angeles coastline was constructed, but also how this major planning and engineering project affected the lives of ordinary city-dwellers and their relationship to nature. You can read a review published in Le Monde here, and a review in English here. A revised and updated English version of the book will come out in 2024 with Oxford University Press under the title Sand Rush: The Revival of the Beach in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles.
In parallel to my work on American coastlines, I have explored the history of the body, beauty, nudity, and muscularity. I have published several articles on these topics, including “The Life, Death, and Rebirth of Muscle Beach: Reassessing the Muscular Physique in Postwar America, 1940s-1980s” (Southern California Quarterly) which was awarded the 2019 Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. Award by the Historical Society of Southern California.
I am currently developing two new research projects. The first explores the history of beach activism in a transnational perspective in the post-Earth Day era, looking at how concerns over plastic pollution, sewage and oil spills, coastal access, and sea level rise shaped modern environmentalism. The second looks at the history of pedestrianism in US and UK cities from the perspective of parents and children.
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