Prompted by the devastation to New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in autumn 2005, Jeffrey H. Jackson has produced a highly readable account of the effects of another natural disaster on a populated urban space: the Parisian flood of 1910. Combining archival and anecdotal evidence, Jackson's is a story of human resilience. Compellingly written and sensitive to the human element of this tragedy, Paris under Water will appeal to a broad audience.

Prior to the flood, Paris strove to become the image of modernity. Under the Second Empire, Baron Haussmann's urban project changed the face of the capital. While his work may have been most visible above ground, with his chief of water services, Eugène Belgrand, Haussmann renovated the sewer system and provided Parisians with cleaner drinking water. After 1870, the Third Republic's belief in progress and science further advanced France's claim to be a modern nation. In 1889, the Eiffel Tower was unveiled, a monument to engineering and democratic government. A little over a decade later, 50 million people visited the Exposition Universelle, which showcased the Petit and Grand Palais, the Pont Alexandre III and the newly inaugurated Metro underground rail network. Yet when the level of the Seine began to rise on the night of 22 January 1910, the flood that followed tested Parisians’ confidence in the Republican tenets of science and progress. So disastrous was the flood that some saw supernatural forces behind it. Occult writer Dr F. Rozier blamed fairies who were angry at the destruction of their forests. Perhaps Halley's Comet, which appeared in the night sky during the week of the flood, had had a nefarious influence too. More common, though, was the tendency to interpret the flood as divine punishment for the separation of the church from the state in 1905. God was angry with the Republic and had sent floodwaters to wash away the nation's sin.

Jackson emphasizes the strength of community bonds at times of crisis. Throughout Paris and France the desire to help those in need cut across class and gender barriers. National boundaries gave way: it was reported that even the Kaiser had offered financial aid. While the Red Cross and other agencies co-ordinated aid, artists and performers used their trade to raise money for flood victims. The Comédie-française and the Opéra-Comique gave their receipts to charity. In a practice perhaps more familiar to the present, Louis Raynal, a popular songwriter of the early twentieth century, penned ‘For the Flooded Ones’. He donated a portion of the proceeds to relief efforts.

Not all French acted so selflessly. Law and order was a concern. Some bakers and food suppliers took advantage of the scarcity of goods to raise prices. On several occasions, such unscrupulous profiteers narrowly escaped being lynched by angry mobs. Looters and bands of thugs known as Apaches took advantage of the lightless streets of the city to raid homes left abandoned. The royalist Action française condemned Republican leaders for the capital's lack of preparedness for such a natural disaster. Nevertheless, the AF's young street brawlers, the Camelots du Roi, offered their services to police and took part in rescue efforts.

Jackson has an eye for the telling anecdote and press article, which makes for a stimulating and sometimes tragicomic read. One man, for example, navigated the flooded streets of Paris on stilts. Keepers at the Paris zoo struggled to prevent the crocodiles from escaping into the Seine. Contemporaries drew comparison with the suffering of 1870–71. Jackson himself describes the river's ‘attack’ and ‘siege’ of the French capital. Soldiers returned to the streets of Paris to keep order and help with the rescue operation. The city council estimated that it would cost 5 billion francs to repair the city – the same sum had been paid to the Prussians after the war.

Once the floodwaters began to recede after 29 January 1910, the French came to commemorate the flood as a time of national unity in the face of adversity. There was no backlash against Republican parties in the elections of April and May 1910. The regime had proved itself. Jackson concludes that the experience of the flood would serve Parisians well in the war of 1914–18, teaching them how to overcome hardship and strengthening their resolve in the face of the enemy, now a human rather than a natural threat. This is an interesting idea but more evidence would have strengthened the argument that in the summer days of August 1914, Parisians and the nation did indeed draw on the ‘spirit of the flood’.