This monograph, based on a Vanderbilt doctoral thesis, displays both the advantages and demerits of books originating from that exercise. The strength of Green's work is the elaborately detailed picture of the life and work of Swedish deaconesses, based on hard-to-access archival sources, and his insightful critique of the meaning of such activities. In this respect, this is a valuable and interesting contribution to our growing understanding of women's ‘devoted’ lives in the context of nineteenth-century Christianity. Green writes well and despite the density of the evidence that he presents, insight, intellectual maturity and a droll wit shine through at intervals.The book's weakness lies in its vestigial resemblances to the thesis from which it grew: a determined attempt to prove an argument related to functional differentiation and the secularisation debate. This, still bearing traces of a literature review, takes up much of the first chapter, space which could have been better used to fill out the fascinating analysis of the diaconate in the following four substantial chapters, which discuss the female diaconate as a movement, its role in education, its contribution to Swedish health care and to poor relief. Overall, this book will be required reading for students of nineteenth-century religious life in Europe as interest in the topic broadens beyond the Anglo-Saxon world.