This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. 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.

Helen Sweet is a Research Associate at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford

Sue Hawkins is a Senior Lecturer in History at Kingston University London

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, 18801914 Angharad Fletcher
3. The social exploits and behaviour of nurses during the Anglo-Boer War 18991902 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 190030 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, 19356 Anna La Torre, Giancarlo Celeri Bellotti and Cecilia Sironi
9. The changing face of medical missions in Nigeria, 193770 Barbra Mann-Wall
10. Two China gadabouts: guerrilla nursing with the Friends Ambulance Unit, 19468 Susan Armstrong Reid
Afterword Rima Apple
Index