Isitt's work is new, innovative, and important. He deftly weaves the Canadian working class opposition to war and the rising leftist sentiment among workers with the inner life of the Siberian Expedition itself. That inner life included opposition to the Siberian venture among a substantial section of the contingent. No less important, he melds a national story with an international one. He reveals new aspects of international cooperation in the attempt to suppress the Bolshevik revolution as well as international rivalries among the countries that intervened in Russia.#x13; Larry Hannant, editor of The Politics of Passion: Norman Bethune's Writing and ArtFrom Victoria to Vladivostok sheds new light on a part of Canadian history that previous scholars have written off as a mere sideshow, a rather embarrassing episode that had no impact on the First World War. In contrast, Isitt sees the problems that befell the Expedition as being rooted in conflicting views of Bolshevism in Canada, and different perceptions of the logic behind an intervention in Russia. In this, his contribution is both significant and original.

#x13; Jonathan Vance, author of Unlikely Soldiers: How Two Canadians Fought the Secret War Against Nazi OccupationBenjamin Isitt#x19;s fascinating study of the Canadian contribution to the military expedition to Siberia designed to crush Lenin#x19;s nascent Communist state punches a large hole in how much of Canada#x19;s chattering class conceives of the country.#x13; Nathan M. Greenfield, Time Literary Supplement ReviewThe story of 4,200 Canadian soldiers sailing from British Columbia to the Russian Far East is told in From Victoria to Vladivostok, a fascinating account by the historian Benjamin Isitt.#x13; Tom Hawthorn, Mutiny Suppressed, a Siberian Expedition Goes Bust, Globe and MailShort, inglorious, hugely unpopular at the time and largely forgotten now: most Canadians probably have no idea that, once upon a time, this country invaded Russia . Isitt#x19;s extensive analysis of why we were there #x13; mostly trying to deprive revolutionary workers at home of an international beacon #x13; is convincing, as is his ironic conclusion: the blatant class warfare of the expedition did more to incite radicalism at home than it did to suppress it in Russia. Less than six months after the Victoria mutiny, a rising tide of industrial unionism would spark the Winnipeg General Strike.#x13; Brian Bethune, Macleans.ca.