At the turn of the 19th century, Russia was a rising power in North America, with an empire that extended across the Bering Sea, through the Aleutians and Kodiak Island, and down the Alaskan panhandle. The objective was to corner the lucrative North Pacific fur trade and colonize the American coastline all the way to San Francisco Bay. The new book The Last Stand of the Raven Clan (Simon & Schuster/Pegasus Books, 2024) recounts how Imperial Russia’s grand plan was thwarted by the indigenous Tlingit people of southeast Alaska. The Tlingit stance against Russian colonization—during the Battle of Sitka and beyond—was arguably the most successful indigenous resistance against European imperialism in North America. The Last Stand of the Raven Clan co-authors Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees used Tlingit oral histories and Russian eyewitness accounts to bring this history to life. Easter is a professor of political science at Boston College. He and Vorhees previously collaborated on the book The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure.