Nurses are often the first and last people to touch us. They are at the bedside of the sickest and most vulnerable; they give us good news and bad; and offer support, expertise, and connection in the darkest moments. They have insight to combat the most pressing problems of our time: climate change, reproductive rights, equity in medicine. Nurses expertly engage with the grief and joy of all humanity, and have done so throughput human history: Nursing is the oldest and most fundamental kind of caregiving, and today nurses are the largest portion of the health care workforce. Yet despite being recently celebrated (or even just finally recognized) during the Covid-19 pandemic, nurses are often undermined and undervalued in ways that reflect complications of gender, race, and class. The story of nursing is uniquely complex. It is woven into war, plague, religion, the economy, and our individual lives in myriad ways. In Taking Care, journalist Sarah DiGregorio chronicles the lives of nurses past and tells the stories of those working today-scientists at the vital intersection of health care and community who are actively changing the world, sometimes invisibly. Fascinating, empowering, and significant, her profound, timely work is a call for change and a love letter to the nurses of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.