Using rigorous archival research and oral accounts, Far Eastern Tour follows the experiences of Canadian soldiers from the time they responded to the government's call to arms to the indifferent reaction to their homecoming a year later. Dealing with the fiasco surrounding recruitment, an inappropriate training regime, and the stark living and combat conditions, Brent Watson examines the human consequences of an army that was totally unprepared for service in the Far East.

"This volume is an actual transcript from a journal kept during a tour made in North America in the spring and summer of 1883, in company with my two friends, Meysey Clive, of Whitfield Court, County of Hereford, and my brother-in-law, Arthur Mitchell, of The Ridge, Wiltshire. Our object was not only to enjoy a pleasant trip and to see as much as we conveniently could of a new country, but also to collect as much information as possible, more especially as regards farming and emigration, in the hope of thus being able to assist those in England who might be thinking of seeking a new home across the Atlantic ..."--Preface.

A remarkable analysis of an important medieval text. . . . This work will surely initiate new studies of the precolonial frame of mind and the role of distinct versions of medieval manuscripts in the shaping of medieval understanding.--Sixteenth Century Journal