220 Book Reviews
The book ends with an epilogue on “Surviving,” where the author returns to some
of the people used to depict the story of death in war and their lives after the era closes.
The issues of meaning and faith following such a painful encounter with mass death are
explored. The author closes with the reflection that this war opened an era of mass destruc-
tion and death that we still live in today.
When one finishes this study, there is a sense that one has taken a long journey into the
soul of our nation. The text is supported with a massive overview of Civil War documents
representative of both sides. Nursing is well represented in the study in relation to our role
in the care of the dying and assistance to families. This book has changed this writer’s view
of what that bare number of over 600,000 dead meant to the people of that time.
Linda E. Sabin, RNC, PhD
Professor of Nursing
University of Louisiana at Monroe
700 University Avenue
Monroe, LA 71209
Florence Nightingale: The Making of an Icon
By Mark Bostridge
(New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2008) (647 pages; $35 cloth)
Like Cleopatra, whose infinite variety time could not make stale, Florence Nightingale
continues to fascinate us. Since Sir Edward Cook’s 1,000-page, two-volume biography
published in 1913 there have been almost fifty further biographies: Mark Bostridge’s
647-page work therefore stands in a long line. Cook’s magnum opus has stood the test
of time, challenged only briefly by Cecil Woodham-Smith’s popularly written Florence
Nightingale, published in 1950. Cook managed to strike a fine balance between sympa-
thetic admiration for his subject and a critical approach, all the more difficult because the
Nightingale heirs commissioned his work. Woodham-Smith did not footnote her work,
and although she gained access to the Claydon archives, which Nightingale’s executors
denied Cook, she relied heavily on Cook as have most of Nightingale’s biographers. Her
Florence Nightingale is much more in the tradition of the hagiographies and lacks Cook’s
judicious critical sense.
So much new information has come forward since Cook published ninety-five years
ago that Bostridge’s contribution is well justified. For nurses in particular this is especially
relevant because Cook either was unaware of the tremendous problems at the Nightingale
Training School or, more likely, considered it impolitic and possibly