Based on archival material, historical and geographic research, this book gives a detailed account of 125 years of Russian America (Alaska) from its establishment as a territory (in 1741) through the exploration of the Aleutian Islands and the North West part of North America, through its sale to the United States in 1867, from the Russian point of view. Analyses the economic position of the Russian-American Company and reasons for its liquidation and the sale of Russian America. Contains many illustrations, portraits and maps.

"This book attempts to list all relevant publications since the 1970s, but also takes earlier important publications into account concentrating particularly on Russian and other non-English publications"--Page 4 of cover.

The Tlingits, the largest Indian group in Alaska, have lived in Alaska's coastal southwestern region for centuries and first met non-Natives in 1741 during an encounter with the crew of the Russian explorer Alexei Chirikov. The volatile and complex connections between the Tlingits and their Russian neighbors, as well as British and American voyagers and traders, are the subject of this classic work, first published in Russian and now revised and updated for this English-language edition. Andrei Val'terovich Grinev bases his account on hundreds of documents from archives in Russia and the United States; he also relies on official reports, the notes of travelers, the investigations of historians and ethnographers, museum collections, atlases, illustrations, and photographs.

The largest by far of the fifty states, Alaska is also the state of greatest mystery and diversity. And, as Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick show in this comprehensive survey, the history of Alaska’s peoples and the development of its economy have matched the diversity of its land- and seascapes. Alaska: A History begins by examining the region’s geography and the Native peoples who inhabited it for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. The Russians claimed northern North America by right of discovery in 1741. During their occupation of “Russian America” the region was little more than an outpost for fur hunters and traders. When the czar sold the territory to the United States in 1867, nobody knew what to do with “Seward’s Folly.” Mainland America paid little attention to the new acquisition until a rush of gold seekers flooded into the Yukon Territory. In 1906 Congress granted Alaska Territory a voteless delegate and in 1912 gave it a territorial legislature. Not until 1959, however, was Alaska’s long-sought goal of statehood realized. During World War II, Alaska’s place along the great circle route from the United States to Asia firmly established its military importance, which was underscored during the Cold War. The developing military garrison brought federal money and many new residents. Then the discovery of huge oil and natural-gas deposits gave a measure of economic security to the state. Alaska: A History provides a full chronological survey of the region’s and state’s history, including the precedent-setting Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which compensated Native Americans for their losses; the effect of the oil industry and the trans-Alaska pipeline on the economy; the Exxon Valdez oil spill; and Alaska politics through the early 2000s.

Thousands of years of American Indian history are covered in this work, from the first migrations into North America, through the development of specific tribal identities, to the turbulent first centuries of encounters with European settlers up until 1800. American Indians in the Early West offers a concise guide to the development of American Indian communities, from the first migrations through the arrival of the Spanish, French, and Russians, to the appearance of Anglo-American traders in the easternmost portions of the West around 1800. With coverage divided into periods and regions, American Indians in the Early West looks at how Indian communities evolved from hunter-gatherers to culturally recognized tribes, and examines the critical encounters of those tribes with non-Natives over the next two-and-a-half centuries. Readers will see that the issues at stake in those encounters—political control, preserving traditions, land and water rights, resistance to economic and military pressures—are very relevant to the Native American experience today.

"This text examines how Russians conceived and practiced the colonial rule that resulted from the transformation of a remote extension of Russia's Siberia frontier to an ostensibly modern overseas colony operated by Europeanized Russians"--OCLC