Susanne Kreutzer and Karen Nolte (eds), Deaconesses in Nursing Care: International Transfer of a Female Model of Life and Work in the 19th and 20th Century (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2016), pp. 230, €46.00, soft cover, ISBN: 978-3-515-11355-7.

This recently published book presents the results of an international conference on deaconesses in nursing care held in Kaiserswerth in Germany, where, in 1836, the first motherhouse for Protestant deaconesses was founded. In their short introduction, Susanne Kreutzer and Karen Nolte – who are both renowned experts in the field of transnational nursing history – outline the concept of the book. It is based on an understanding of 'transnationalism' that goes beyond historical comparisons and focuses on exchange processes of concepts, material objects and semiotic systems (p. 7). Protestant deaconesses played a crucial role in the history of nursing well into the middle of the twentieth century. According to the German model, the deaconesses lived together in a so-called 'motherhouse'. They were trained in this motherhouse and sent out as nursing sisters to parishes, hospitals and numerous other institutions of home mission and medical care. Motherhouses for deaconesses spread widely across the European continent and some regions outside it, such as the United States and the Ottoman Empire. Through processes of adaptation, the German model of Protestant deaconesses was transformed according to specific cultural and societal contexts. Nevertheless, caring for the patients' bodies and souls remained the core of the deaconesses' work. One has to agree with Susanne Kreutzer when she states that the 'history of the deaconesses serves as a perfect lens for the transnational history of nursing, medicine, the Church, gender and the welfare state' (p. 225), but so far, the transnational dimension of the history of nursing deaconesses has mostly been neglected. For this reason, the present publication is to be appreciated. The book is divided into four sections. The first one deals with the foundation era of German deaconess motherhouses and includes three chapters. It starts with a very illuminating paper by Karen Nolte dealing with the 'self-understanding and everyday nursing practice' of the Kaiserswerth deaconesses. Nolte convincingly shows that the nursing deaconesses often worked quite independently of the control of the physicians and the pastors who, according to the gendered normative level, were supposed to meticulously instruct the sisters. In addition, Nolte's paper significantly widens our knowledge concerning the sisters medical training. Annett Buettner contributes a chapter on 'Denominational sisters and brothers as pioneers of battlefield nurses'. Focusing on the German Imperial Wars of Unification, Buettner throws a light on the roles of women on the battlefield and describes the international dimensions as well as …