Alaska: An American Colony

by Stephen W. Haycox

Overview

Alaska often looms large as a remote, wild place with endless resources and endlessly independent, resourceful people. Yet it has always been part of larger stories: the movement of Indigenous peoples from Asia into the Americas and their contact with and accommodation to Western culture; the spread of European political economy to the New World; the expansion of American capitalism and culture; and the impacts of climate change.

In this updated classic, distinguished historian Stephen Haycox surveys the state’s cultural, political, economic, and environmental past, examining its contemporary landscape and setting the region in a broader, global context. Tracing Alaska’s transformation from the early postcontact period through the modern era, Haycox explores the ever-evolving relationship between Native Alaskans and the settlers and institutions that have dominated the area, highlighting Native agency, advocacy, and resilience. Throughout, he emphasizes the region’s systemic dependence on both federal support and outside corporate investment in natural resources—furs, gold, copper, salmon, oil—and offers a less romantic, more complex history that acknowledges the broader national and international contexts of Alaska’s past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295746869
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	04/09/2020
Edition description:	second edition
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Stephen Haycox is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He is author of Frigid Embrace: Politics, Economics, and Environment in Alaska and Battleground Alaska: Fighting Federal Power in America’s Last Wilderness and coeditor of An Alaska Anthology: Interpreting the Past.

Table of Contents

Prologue
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Alaska Geography and the Anthropology of Its Native Peoples
PART ONE: RUSSIAN AMERICA
Russian America, an Introduction
Russian Eastward Expansion and the Kamchatka Expeditions
Exploitation and the Origins of the Contest of Sovereignty
Grigorii Shelikhov and the Russian American Company
Aleksandr Baranov
Russian America
The Sale of Russian America
PART TWO: AMERICAN ALASKA
American Alaska, an Introduction
Taking the Measure of Alaska: The Alaska Purchase and the Politics of the Early Economy
National Currents in Alaska: The Gold Rush and Progressive Reform
Pioneer Alaska: The Last Frontier
War and the Transition to Statehood
Modern Alaska: The Last Wilderness
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Deeply and methodically researched, carefully and accurately presented, Haycox’s argument is clear: Alaska’s people have been relatively powerless to determine their future, despite being the ones who best know Alaska. As debate continues over the exploitation of Alaska’s remaining oilfields, this is a point of view that must be heard."

Booklist

From the first migrations of native peoples to the development of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, the history of the largest U.S. state is complex, dramatic, and significant. Anchorage-based historian Stephen W. Haycox has written the first comprehensive history of Alaska in more than half a century and, arguably, the best ever.

Just how important is Alaska to the rest of the United States, and what does it offer in the way of tangible assets? Was its purchase truly "Seward's Folly"? Haycox (history, Univ. of Alaska, Anchorage; Frigid Embrace: Politics, Economics, and Environment in Alaska) offers far from the usual look at Alaska's natural beauty; in fact, he hardly mentions it. Instead, he focuses on the remarkable political activity that has shaped this vast land, beginning with Russian explorations, continuing through with Spanish, French, and British intentions to establish colonies to oppose Russian expansion, and culminating with the purchase of Alaska during the Lincoln Presidency. Haycox's research is thorough and at times a bit deep to wade through, but he eventually emerges with a cultural, poitical, and economic history of a land that is still largely unexplored, misunderstood, and often haphazardly managed. The author also explores in less detail the anthropology of Alaska's Native peoples and the region's geography. Essential for all Alaskan and Pacific Coast libraries, this book should also be considered as a primary source for college and large public libraries. Joseph L. Carlson, Allan Hancock Community Coll., CA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

"[A] work of excellent scholarship. The publication of this new edition necessarily updates the book and will hopefully introduce it to a new audience. It is without question, mandatory reading for those interested in Alaska and Western history."

Alaska History

This work is a clearly written overview of Alaska’s economic and political history. Its main thesis is that the region has not been populatedby independent citizens (contrary to the myth believed by many of its residents), but rather by men and women who dwell in an economic and political colony dependent upon the outside world.

Pacific Historical Review

Despite its remoteness, Alaska has been part of larger stories - of the movement of Native peoples and their contact and accommodation to Western culture, of the spread of European political economy to the New World, and of the expansion of American capitalism. Alaska: an American Colony focuses on Russian America and American Alaska, bringing the history of Alaska up to the present and exploring the continuing impact of the Alaska Native claims settlement, the trans-Alaska pipeline and the Alaska lands act. In contrast to the stereotype of Alaska as a place where rugged individuals triumph over the harsh environment, Stephen Haycox offers a less romantic, more complex history that emphasizes the broader national and international contexts of Alaska's past and the similarities between Alaska and the American West. Covering Alaska's cultural, political, economic and environmental history, the book also includes an anthropology of its Native peoples.

The Western Historical Quarterly

"Deeply and methodically researched, carefully and accurately presented, Haycox's argument is clear: Alaska's people have been relatively powerless to determine their future, despite being the ones who best know Alaska. As debate continues over the exploitation of Alaska's remaining oilfields, this is a point of view that must be heard."—Booklist

"This history of Alaska's development looks at the early postcontact period through Russian America and US territorial status and statehood. . . . Interspersed with the concise direct narrative are illuminating insights into the role of outside forces on Alaska and the failure of all attempts to make this area self-sufficient within the contemporary economy."—Choice

From the Publisher