| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 34.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WHQ online. About 221 words from this article are provided below; about 393 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the Western Historical Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the Western Historical Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Western Historical Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Western Historical Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 34.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Take My Land, Take My Life: The Story of Congress's Historic Settlement of Alaska Native Land Claims, 1960–1971. By Donald Craig Mitchell. (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2001. x + 679 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $40.00, cloth; $29.95, paper.)

In this carefully researched history, Donald Craig Mitchell describes the broad political-economic context, the details and intrigue of political strategies and negotiations, and the sequence of often serendipitous events that shaped the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). As Mitchell reveals, settlement of Alaska Native land claims was influenced by several factors: Alaska's dependence on oil and mineral development to fund government operations ever since statehood in 1959; discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay on state selected lands that had tentative federal approval but no title transfer; the rising political consciousness and organization of Alaska Natives against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement; the influence of eastern white activism on behalf of and in conjunction with Alaska Natives; mobilization of conservationists interested in seeing much of Alaska designated for national parks, wildlife refuges, and wilderness; and, congressional interest in settling these claims on different terms subsequent to over twenty years of experience with the Indian Claims Commission and in light of miserable conditions on Native American reservations in the lower forty-eight states.

. . .

There are about 393 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.