Over the years I’ve learned and lived a lot of Alaska history. As I look at what’s written, some of what I would say is missing. So I’ve decided to write a history book.
On Tuesday I’ll be giving a talk on my ideas via Zoom. The link is at the end of this newsletter.
This is a unique challenge and opportunity, because much of Alaska’s history is so new, it is waiting to be defined for the first time.
Historians up to now—all the way back to Bancroft in 1886—focused on some aspect of colonization, from the Russians to the Americans to the pioneer Alaskans, and reinterpreting those movements. Most of us, including popular culture, learned the pioneer story.
Later historians blew up that myth—the tale of the hearty, independent pioneer entering an empty land—and the rise of Alaska Native power since the 1990s turned it on its head. Newer work sees the pioneers as invaders.
I wrote a centennial history of Anchorage, From the Shores of Ship Creek, realizing I had lived exactly half of that 100 years in the city, and noticed that a huge part of our history was missing from books. I also wrote a catalog for the Alaska State Museum, Our Story in Many Voices (coming from University of Alaska Press), and realized that our different perspectives of history remain unreconciled.
What’s left out? Even the best, most recent history book, Alaska: An American Colony, by Steve Haycox, doesn’t discuss the explosion of diversity in Alaska’s population of the last 30 years, the fundamental economic and social changes caused by full technological integration of Alaska into mainstream American culture, or the state’s transition from a colony to a dependency of the United States.
What’s unreconciled? The meaning of “Alaskan.” The Alaska Native story has to be primary. It is a story of triumph. But what about the other 83 percent of Alaskans? Their story is important, too, and their identity as Alaskans is worth examination as more than colonizers. Through history, we can start to understand how all these people fit together.
The Russian period lasted roughly a century. The pioneer period, until the closing of the Alaska frontier, lasted about a century more. Now we are another half-century down the line. What’s this period called? That’s where we’ll find today’s Alaskan identity.
I envision the book as a college level, chronological, complete but not comprehensive history of Alaska. It will be a survey, not a tome. And I hope it can freshen Alaska’s conversation about itself.
Writing the book will take time, and before I can do it, I will have to raise money. I am an independent writer and a book like this cannot support itself on sales. The audience is too small.
My purpose speaking on Tuesday (November 5, 2024) at noon, Anchorage time, will be to introduce my intentions and gather ideas from thoughtful Alaskans. Please join if you are interested. The talk is sponsored by the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Club of Alaska.
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