The History of Nursing (Major Themes in Health and Social Welfare) (1ST ed.)

Table of Contents:

Volume I: From Celebration to Critique--The Purposes of Nursing History

Part 1: Chronicles of Progress

Part 2: New Histories

Part 3: Debate and Controversy

Part 4: From Great Women to Intricate Lives

Volume II: Nursing, Power, and Politics

Part 1: Processes of Professionalization

Part 2: The Closure of Professional Boundaries

Part 3: Nursing Knowledge and the Education of Nurses

Volume III: Social and Economic Histories of Nursing

Part 1: Nursing and Social Class

Part 2: Nursing and Modern Economies

Part 3: The Influence of Gender History

Part 4: Race, Ethnicity, and Nursing

Volume IV: The Nature of Nursing--Histories of Culture and Practice

Part 1: The 'Cultural Turn' in the History of Nursing

Part 2: Global and Postcolonial Histories

Part 3: Histories of Nursing Practice

The History of Nursing is a complex, shifting discipline engaged in an ongoing search for identity and purpose. If its earliest works were celebratory narratives of 'great deeds' and 'influential nurses', dominated by biographies of Florence Nightingale and tropes of imperial womanhood, then from at least the 1970s, academics--drawn mainly from Women's History and Nursing--have argued for a move from such uncritical stances and towards more analytical and nuanced approaches. Lately, Nursing History has been characterized by the 'cultural turn', with a shift in focus from class, gender, and race, to the study of practices, ideologies, and life-worlds. Characterized by an emphasis on history 'from below', it aims to recapture the experiences of both nurses and patients, and to recover voices that never found their way into mainstream histories of healthcare or society.

Now, a new title from Routledge's Major Themes in Health and Social Welfare series meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of this evolution. Edited by the Director of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Manchester, The History of Nursing offers both a historiographical overview of disciplinary trends and a definitive omnibus of classic scholarship and rigorous research studies. Avoiding material which is tendentious, superficial, and otiose, it will be welcomed as an 'über-anthology'of the most significant and valuable major works in the History of Nursing.