This is the first, full-length biography told from a post-feminist perspective, about one of the world's most famous women. Born into Victorian Britain's elite, a brilliant, magnetic teenager decided to devote her life to the indigent sick by becoming a nurse. Florence's family, especially her mother opposed the decision. Nightingale insisted on the right to fulfill her dream. Catapulted into the Crimean war, she brought order to the chaos of British military hospitals. But she could never forget her patients, that broken army of bloody, lice-infested skeletons. Despite debilitating illness, she focused all her faculties on preventing another Crimean calamity: the death of thousands due to avoidable causes. Hygienic army installations, sanitation for India, and creation of modern nursing owe much to Nightingale. To Victorians, she personified their ideal of nurturing female. Hindsight provides a wider perspective. By creating a career for women that empowered them with economic independence, Florence Nightingale stands among the founders of modern feminism.