Main description:

From the height of colonialism in the mid-nineteenth century, through to the aftermath of the Second World War, nurses have been at the heart of colonial projects. They were ideally placed to insinuate the 'improving' culture of their employers into the local communities they served, and travelled in droves to far-flung parts of the globe to serve their country. Issues of gender, class and race permeate this book, as the complex relationships between nurses, their medical colleagues, governments and the populations they nursed are examined in detail, using case studies which draw on exciting new sources. Many of the chapters are based on first-hand accounts of nurses and reveal that not all were motivated by patriotic vigour or altruism, but went out in search of adventure. The book will be an essential read for colonial historians, as well as historians of gender and ethnicity. -- .

Contents:

Introduction: Contextualising colonial and post-colonial nursing - Helen Sweet and Sue Hawkins
1. Lady amateurs and gentleman professionals: emergency nursing in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 - Sam Goodman
2. Imperial sisters: disease, conflict and nursing in the British Empire, 1880-1914 - Angharad Fletcher
3. The social exploits and behaviour of nurses during the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 - Charlotte Dale
4. Native health nurses: 'they do what you wish; they like you; you the good nurse!' - Linda Bryder
5. Training 'the natives' as nurses - so what went wrong? An Australian context - Odette Best
6. Working toward health, Christianity and democracy: American colonial and missionary nurses in Puerto Rico 1900-30 - Winifred Connerton
7. Educating native female nurses in the Dutch East Indies in the early twentieth century - Liesbeth Hesselink
8. A sample of Italian fascist colonialism: nursing and medical records in the Imperial War in Ethiopia, 1935-6 - Anna La Torre, Giancarlo Celeri Bellotti and Cecilia Sironi
9. The changing face of medical missions in Nigeria, 1937-70 - Barbra Mann-Wall
10. Two China gadabouts: guerrilla nursing with the Friends' Ambulance Unit, 1946-8 - Susan Armstrong Reid
Afterword - Rima Apple
Index -- .