Crusaders for fitness. The history of American health reformers

enterprise, and many gaps in our knowledge remain; however, Maggs confirms the lack of opportunity for trained nurses in voluntary hospitals, retrieves information about nursing agencies, and, by examining some job changes, begins to reevaluate thinking about the relationship between the voluntary and poor law sectors. All of this adds up to new ideas and interpretations and justifies the claim to complement Abel Smith. Some of the problems might have receded in a longer account for example, the questions a reader has in the presentation of the hospital records data and in the precise inferences drawn. The oral history material is also used disappointingly little in a book which claims to deal with the ordinary nurses rather than the leaders. Overall, however, it is easier to list the specific contributions made by this book than to pinpoint the general ones. In part this has to do with the concept of "occupational imperialism" said to be central but never fully explained. In part too, it has to do with women's work a theme which surfaces frequently but somehow seems not to be pulled together at the end. But perhaps there is another reason. The transition from PhD thesis to book is never an easy one, and I am left with an impression of author and publisher locked in combat why else a substantive chapter masquerading as summary and conclusions? Why else an appendix which is included in the text and barely shorter than the chapter to which it is appended? Celia Davies University of Warwick