Hospital History in Canada and the United States

During the last decade, historians such as Craig, Guy, Ludmerer, MacDougall, Risse, Rosenberg, and Shortt have identified weaknesses in the prevailing historiography of the hospital as an institution, and they have also outlined conceptual frameworks that others could follow to develop a sounder understanding of the origins and evolution of the hospital in North America. In the United States at least, the response to the numerous pleas, laments, and methodological statements about the writing of good hospital history has been encouraging. Several sophisticated histories of hospitals have been written, including those by Vogel, Rosner, and Stevens, as well as Charles Rosenberg's latest work, which is one of the books being reviewed here.