Books in the Nursing History and Humanities series

This book examines the work that nurses of many differing nations undertook during the Crimean War, the Boer War, the Spanish Civil War, both World Wars and the Korean War. It makes an excellent and timely contribution to the growing discipline of nursing wartime work. In its exploration of multiple nursing roles during the wars, it considers the responsiveness of nursing work, as crisis scenarios gave rise to improvisation and the - sometimes quite dramatic - breaking of practice boundaries. The book explores the contested position of the female nurse in an essentially masculine environment, partly because of the anxiety provoked by the presence of women in war zones and partly because nursing was considered a humanitarian service and thus antithetical to war. By exploring the work of the ordinary nurse, the book demonstrates that war became an arena in which the value of female nurses and nursing work came to be recognised; within war, nurses could foster new roles and opportunities. The originality of the text lies not only in the breadth of wartime practices covered, but also the international scope of both the contributors and the nurses they consider. It will therefore appeal to academics and students in the history of nursing and war, nursing work and the history of medicine and war from across the globe.

Contains eleven landmark essays that explore the significance and meaning of nursing, with a wide geographic range that expands the existing literature on nursing work -- .

Compares the histories of psychiatric and voluntary hospital nurses' health from the rise of the professional nurse in 1880 to the advent of the National Health Service in 1948 -- .

Seeks to integrate the history of mental health nursing with the wider history of institutional and community care. -- .

The editors have brought together eleven authors for an analysis of colonial and post-colonial nursing that spans nearly a century, and touches on Europe, Australia, the Caribbean and Africa -- .

Examines the experiences of First World War nurses through their own writings, offering fresh insights into the reality of industrial warfare. -- .

The mobility of the Second World War, brought on by 'technological advances in destructive capabilities' needed new type of medical service. Success meant that expert care was needed near the frontline. -- .

Covering the colonial and post-colonial periods, African nurses and everyday work puts at the centre of historical enquiry the experiences of African nurses who laboured day and night in Zimbabwe's hospitals, healing the sick and nursing the infirm. -- .

This book studies Crimean War nursing from a transnational perspective setting nursing in the five combatant armies into the wider context of European statecraft. -- .