Library Journal Review
Higonnet (English, Univ. of Connecticut) brings together excerpts from the graphic, sometimes horrifying, accounts of two nurses' experiences in World War I: Ellen N. La Motte's The Backwash of War (1916) and Mary Borden's The Forbidden Zone (1929). Both women recognized the futility of nursing at the front, where the objective was to heal soldiers so that they might go back to kill or be killed. Indeed, La Motte's writing was so forceful that her book was censored for a time. Higonnet's introduction gives context to the women's writing and notes the parallels in their lives, the incidents they sketched and their observations of the conduct of war, and the place of women in particular. Their vivid descriptions and critiques of the war provide another viewpoint to those of combatants. Since the two original books are no longer in print and are not widely available, this volume would be a useful addition to academic and public libraries with interests in World War I and especially in women's accounts of the war. Patricia A. Beaber, Coll. of New Jersey Lib., Ewing (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.