Real People/Real Stories explores the best in nonfiction history, biography, science, nature, and the arts.

This month's read:

The Last Stand of the Raven Clan: A Story of Imperial Ambition, Native Resistance and How the Tlingit-Russian War Shaped a Continent, by Gerald Easter & Mara Vorhees

In the early 1800s, Imperial Russia established fur trading outposts in Alaska with plans to extend their control all the way down the west coast of America. Standing in their way were the local indigenous tribes, who deeply resented this intrusion into their homeland. The situation came to a head at the Battle of Sitka. The Last Stand of the Raven Clan tells the true story of the Tlingit people of southeast Alaska who declared war on the Russian empire, changing the fate of North America.

“Indigenous resistance in Alaska was so fierce that it thwarted the Russian empire’s colonial ambitions in North America, profoundly impacting the continent’s destiny, according to this gripping and ambitious account. Easter and Vorhees lay out this vigorous history in novelistic prose that immerses the reader in turn of the 19th century life and combat. History buffs will be enthralled.” -- Publishers Weekly (starred)