Nursing And Empire

The movement of Indian nurses to the United States has a far longer history than most accounts allow, and Sujani K. Reddy traces it back to the colonial period. The study draws on archive work and on recorded life histories to follow nursing as work shaped by gender, class, religion and empire, from mission hospitals in colonial India through postcolonial training programmes to employment in American healthcare. Reddy gives weight to what the women themselves chose and endured, including discrimination and the expectations placed on them at home and abroad. The writing is scholarly but readable, and its sources are laid out clearly enough to follow the argument step by step. Good to know: • Archival research combined with life-history interviews • Nursing examined through gender, labour and colonial history • The path from mission hospitals to American healthcare employment • Attention to the choices and resistance of the women themselves Written for students and researchers working on gender, migration studies, public health and the history of South Asia, available at Boipoka.