| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 210 words from this article are provided below; about 504 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, 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. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• 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 American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
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 American Historical Review, 105.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Sergei Kan. Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1999. Pp. xxxi, 665. $60.00.

This extraordinary book, the fruit of two decades of research, is a model of historical anthropology. Its focus is the Tlingit, Native Americans in Alaska, who ultimately embraced Russian Orthodoxy and, until very recent times, clung tenaciously to this faith. The book self-consciously combines the fields of history and anthropology; it draws on systematic research in printed sources (including archival collections in the United States) and anthropological field research. On the basis of these dual sources, Sergei Kan examines traditional (pre-Christian) Tlingit culture and society, the first encounters with Russians (and Orthodoxy) in the late eighteenth century, the large-scale conversions to Orthodoxy after the United States acquired Alaska in 1867, and the persistence of Orthodoxy even after 1917, when the Bolshevik revolution terminated exogenous support and resources. This study integrates a multifaceted approach; it attends to the symbolic dynamics as well as social and political factors, communal as well as individual dimensions. Its principal task is to explain this time-delayed conversion (that is, after Russian secular authority disappeared) and the perseverance of Orthodoxy in the twentieth century. . . .

There are about 504 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.