The book examines nurses’ professional work and life in the context of the ongoing institutional restructuring of health care systems in seven European counties, England, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. The main idea has been to discuss professional experience and expertise from below, i.e. from the perspective of the nurses and focuses on how they deal with restructuring measures caused by changes in policy and administration. This is not, however, a book about policy implementation and new managerial ideas. Its goal is to examine the complexities and ambiguities in nurses’ work from different theoretical viewpoints. The book also describes both the unique situations and larger societal patterns in which these complexities and ambiguities are embedded. It is intended to contribute to the discussion of and research on nurses as European welfare state professionals. European Nurses’ Life and Work under Restructuring is written for researchers, practitioners, managers and administrators interested in welfare state restructuring, health care systems and the nursing profession. Jarmo Houtsonen is Senior Researcher at the Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Joensuu, Finland. Gun-Britt Wärvik is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Education, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.