Letters from Alaska

Letters from Alaska
Author: John Muir
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 156
Release: 1993
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780299139544

A collection of letters published in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin by naturalist Muir when he was exploring Alaska in 1879-80. He describes the natives and missionaries, gold mines and towns, mountains and glaciers, trees and wildlife, and other aspects. Paper edition (unseen), $12.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Hall Young of Alaska

Hall Young of Alaska
Author: S. Hall Young
Publisher:
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2013-10
Genre:
ISBN: 9781258869731

This is a new release of the original 1927 edition.

An Alaska Anthology

An Alaska Anthology
Author: Stephen W. Haycox
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2011-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0295800372

Alaska, with its Indian, Eskimo, and Aleut heritage, its century of Russian colonization, its peoples’ formidable struggles to wrest a living (or a fortune) from the North’s isolated and harsh environment, and its relatively recent achievement of statehood, has long captured the popular imagination. In An Alaska Anthology, twenty-five contemporary scholars explore the region’s pivotal events, significant themes, and major players, Native, Russian, Canadian, and American. The essays chosen for this anthology represent the very best writing on Alaska, giving great depth to our understanding and appreciation of its history from the days of Russian-American Company domination to the more recent threat of nuclear testing by the Atomic Energy Commission and the influence of oil money on inexperienced politicians. Readers may be familiar with an earlier anthology, Interpreting Alaska’s History, from which the present volume evolved to accommodate an explosion of research in the past decade. While a number of the original pieces were found to be irreplaceable, more than half of the essays are new. The result is a fresh perspective on the subject and an invaluable resource for students, teachers, and scholars.

Across the Shaman's River

Across the Shaman's River
Author: Daniel Lee Henry
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2020-02-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1602233306

The story of one of Alaska’s last Indigenous strongholds, shut off for a century until a fateful encounter between a shaman, a preacher, and a naturalist. Tucked in the corner of Southeast Alaska, the Tlingits had successfully warded off the Anglo influences that had swept into other corners of the territory. This Native American tribe was viewed by European and American outsiders as the last wild tribe and a frustrating impediment to access. Missionaries and prospectors alike had widely failed to bring the Tlingit into their power. Yet, when naturalist John Muir arrived in 1879, accompanied by a fiery preacher, it only took a speech about “brotherhood”—and some encouragement from the revered local shaman Skandoo’o—to finally transform these “hostile heathens.” Using Muir’s original journal entries, as well as historic writings of explorers juxtaposed with insights from contemporary tribal descendants, Across the Shaman’s River reveals how Muir’s famous canoe journey changed the course of history and had profound consequences on the region’s Native Americans. “The product of three decades of thought, research, and attentive listening. . . . Henry shines a bright light on events that have long been shadowy, half-known. . . . Now, thanks to careful scholarship and his access to Tlingit oral history, we are given a different perspective on familiar events: we are inside the Tlingit world, looking out at the changes happening all around them.” —Alaska History

Son of the Wilderness

Son of the Wilderness
Author: Linnie Marsh Wolfe
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780299186340

This Pulitzer Prize-winning biography is available in an updated paperback edition. Working closely with Muir's family and with his papers, Wolfe was able to create a full portrait of her subject, not only as America's firebrand conservationist and founder of the national park system, but also as husband, father, and friend. Illustrations.

Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress

Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress
Author: Craig Volden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2014-10-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0521761522

This book explores why some members of Congress are more effective than others at navigating the legislative process and what this means for how Congress is organized and what policies it produces. Craig Volden and Alan E. Wiseman develop a new metric of individual legislator effectiveness (the Legislative Effectiveness Score) that will be of interest to scholars, voters, and politicians alike. They use these scores to study party influence in Congress, the successes or failures of women and African Americans in Congress, policy gridlock, and the specific strategies that lawmakers employ to advance their agendas.

Stickeen

Stickeen
Author: John Muir
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Total Pages: 24
Release: 1937-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1465538739

Do Glaciers Listen?

Do Glaciers Listen?
Author: Julie Cruikshank
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2010-10-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0774859768

Do Glaciers Listen? explores the conflicting depictions of glaciers to show how natural and cultural histories are objectively entangled in the Mount Saint Elias ranges. This rugged area, where Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory now meet, underwent significant geophysical change in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which coincided with dramatic social upheaval resulting from European exploration and increased travel and trade among Aboriginal peoples. European visitors brought with them varying conceptions of nature as sublime, as spiritual, or as a resource for human progress. They saw glaciers as inanimate, subject to empirical investigation and measurement. Aboriginal oral histories, conversely, described glaciers as sentient, animate, and quick to respond to human behaviour. In each case, however, the experiences and ideas surrounding glaciers were incorporated into interpretations of social relations. Focusing on these contrasting views during the late stages of the Little Ice Age (1550-1900), Cruikshank demonstrates how local knowledge is produced, rather than discovered, through colonial encounters, and how it often conjoins social and biophysical processes. She then traces how the divergent views weave through contemporary debates about cultural meanings as well as current discussions about protected areas, parks, and the new World Heritage site. Readers interested in anthropology and Native and northern studies will find this a fascinating read and a rich addition to circumpolar literature.