Rate My Professor Barbara Brookes

Professor Brookes' scholarship centers on the intersections of women's history and the history of medicine, encompassing gender relations in New Zealand and the history of health and disease in both New Zealand and Britain. Among her seminal works is A History of New Zealand Women (Bridget Williams Books, 2016), which received the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Award in the Illustrated Non-Fiction category. Her first monograph, Abortion in England 1900-1967 (1988; republished by Routledge in 2013), remains influential. She co-edited two collections on New Zealand women's history with Charlotte Macdonald and Margaret Tennant, edited six additional volumes—including Bodily Subjects: Histories of Gender and Health (McGill-Queens University Press, 2014, with Tracy Penny Light and Wendy Mitchinson)—and authored numerous articles, such as "Papering over madness: Accountability and resistance in colonial asylum files: A New Zealand case study" (Rethinking History, 2018). Brookes serves as co-editor of the New Zealand Journal of History and sits on the editorial boards of Women's History Review, Health and History, and Journal of Family History. In recognition of her impact, she was appointed Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in 2018 for services to historical research and women, and awarded the Royal Society Te Apārangi Humanities Aronui Medal in 2018 for outstanding contributions to humanities scholarship.