In this meticulously researched monograph, Matthieu Brejon de Lavergnée charts the global impact of the French Catholic religious congregation the Daughters of Charity across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A sequel to Brejon’s The streets as a cloister (17th–18th centuries), which examined the origins of the sisters in France, in this monograph, Brejon uncovers the continuities and changes experienced by the Daughters of Charity from the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 until the mid-twentieth century during times of revolution, poverty and global expansion.

The first four chapters deal with the troubled conditions that the Daughters of Charity lived under in France at the turn of the nineteenth century. In the first chapter, Brejon argues that while the sisters were initially spared from the mass looting that the clergy and other religious congregations experienced during the French Revolution, they did not escape legal restrictions, revealing that their inventories show that large numbers of sisters left the congregation in these years. Brejon then charts the perilous times that the sisters lived under during the Terror between 1792 and 1795, detailing that the Daughters of Charity faced imprisonment and occasionally were executed for being religious, although some authorities defied orders to suppress them because of the charitable good they provided in their communities. Brejon subsequently charts how the Daughters of Charity were slowly accepted back into French society as the country emerged from revolution between 1795 and 1809, arguing that this was helped by Napoleon Bonaparte’s policies that championed religious congregations that provided education and nursing. Brejon then focuses on the turbulent years within the ranks of the Daughters of Charity between 1809 and 1816. He details that during this period the sisters split into two communities after a schism emerged between the sisters over loyalty and obedience to certain superiors, which had lasting ramifications for their community.

Much of Brejon’s book concentrates on the Daughters of Charity’s global expansion across the nineteenth century. One chapter is centred on the sisters’ Marian devotion during the ‘Marian century’. Brejon argues that during the nineteenth century, devotion to the Virgin Mary grew extensively in imagery – especially the Virgin standing on the globe – and that this imagery was epitomised by the Daughters of Charity in both their spiritual and global activities. In chapter v, Brejon examines how the Daughters of Charity rapidly expanded across the world by using surviving registers to track the congregation’s growth from 12,000 sisters in France to over 130,000 sisters by the end of the nineteenth century. He contends that this was caused by several factors, including its recruitment of working-class women into the congregation, which diversified its membership. He also argues in chapter vi that, as suppliers of education and healthcare, the sisters ran multipurpose establishments that fulfilled their charitable work by teaching pupils and treating the sick in their hospitals. This is expanded further in a later chapter in which Brejon reviews the sisters’ role as a global missionary congregation. He observes that the Daughters of Charity were invited to establish missions by ecclesiastical and civil authorities across Europe, the USA, Latin America and Asia, in the anticipation that the sisters’ renowned work in education and healthcare would help to modernise their countries. However, in chapter viii, Brejon discusses how this reputation in education and healthcare created some backlash towards the sisters during the ‘liberal age of secularisation’ between 1860 and 1870. Brejon reasons that, compared to the bloodshed that expelled the sisters during the French Revolution, sisters were now being expelled and displaced by law in some locations because of shifting attitudes that were caused by resentment towards the sisters because of their dominance in education, especially in the primary education of girls.

In the final chapters, Brejon maps out how mounting anticlericalism witnessed the laicisation of schools and hospitals founded and run by the Daughters of Charity. In chapters ix and x, he narrates how two waves of laicisation occurred in France between 1880 and 1900, which forced the sisters to obtain professional qualifications and diplomas in order to continue their vocational work in education and nursing. In his chapter on the Daughters of Charity’s role in modern nursing, he relates how the growing demand by governments and authorities for women religious congregations to hold nursing diplomas to train and treat patients in hospitals exposed the growing tensions between the religious virtues of the sisters with the demand to show on paper their professional competence. This is expanded further when he examines the vital role that the Daughters of Charity played in orphanages and moral education. He outlines that while the sisters provided education for the poor, critics accused them of only teaching girls basic skills which left them vulnerable to exploitation. However, he argues that between 1920 and 1930, the sisters responded to social change, particularly in the moral education of women, emphasising the important role that unions played with the sisters to promote professional learning and domestic skills to prepare women for marital life.

Beyond frontiers is an essential book for anyone interested in studying the history of women religious and their global outreach in the modern period. It not only offers new insights into the work of the Daughters of Charity, but demonstrates in a comprehensive and engaging manner how the Daughters of Charity encountered many tests that challenged their position as women religious religiously, socially, politically and nationally. Beyond frontiers will be a valuable book to scholars interested in the history of modern women religious in European and global history.