Helen Sweet is a Research Associate at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of OxfordSue Hawkins is a Senior Lecturer in History at Kingston University London

• Introduction: Contextualising colonial and post-colonial nursing – Helen Sweet and Sue Hawkins1. 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 Fletcher3. The social exploits and behaviour of nurses during the Anglo-Boer War 1899–1902 – Charlotte Dale4. Native health nurses: ‘they do what you wish; they like you; you the good nurse!’ – Linda Bryder5. Training 'the natives' as nurses – so what went wrong? An Australian context – Odette Best6. 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 Hesselink8. 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 Sironi9. The changing face of medical missions in Nigeria, 1937–70 – Barbra Mann-Wall10. Two China gadabouts: guerrilla nursing with the Friends’ Ambulance Unit, 1946–8 – Susan Armstrong ReidAfterword – Rima AppleIndex

'A treasure trove of fresh insight, new research and analysis this book demonstrates the vibrancy of nursing history. Its editors should be congratulated for their vision and energy in bringing together a series of chapters which express not only the many meanings of colonialism, but reveal how nursing provides a kaleidoscope through which to view broader social attitudes towards race, class, gender and the value of care from a comparative perspective.'Anne Marie Rafferty, Professor of Nursing and Dean of the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery, King's College London