[1] William Willmott, of the University of Canterbury, wrote that "it is evident from the nature of his source material that Dr. Morton did not set out to write a book about the Chinese in British Columbia, but only about white reactions to them.

"[2] The title of the book originates from a comment towards the province in an 1874 speech by Edward Blake, a member of the Parliament of Canada from South Bruce, Ontario.

"[3] Samantha J. Scott, the author of Text as Discourse: The Chinese in Canada in Historiographical Perspective, argued, "Morton relies at random upon a very minute selection of newspaper articles and government records.

"[9] The book includes 10 chapters,[1] an index,[10] sixteen pages of black-and-white photographs in two sets,[10][11] and a listing of key dates from 1843–1967, labeled "chronology.

"[3] The book discusses the origins of anti-East Asian sentiment stemming from the Opium War-era relations with China and the reasons for Chinese immigration to North America.

[4] Morton added that his book is "not a necessarily sociological history of the Chinese in the sea of sterile mountains nor, for that matter, a particularly accurate or complete one.

"[9] Scott stated that the book's efforts to get "an international scope through loose connections between British Columbia, California and Australia" were positive and that Morton "tries to recognize the shortcomings of his own text".