UAPress releases book about Christian missions in Northwest Alaska

The University of Alaska Press has released "More Than God Demands: Politics & Influence of Christian Missions in Northwest Alaska, 1897-1918" by Anthony Urvina with Sally Urvina.

"More Than God Demands" presents a new perspective on the politics, methods and motivations of a government project designed to erase ten thousand years of Native culture in a misguided attempt to "uplift" Alaska Native peoples into "civilized" American citizenship. Author Anthony Urvina draws on new and established sources to explore the political fights between agents of the federal government and missionary-teachers of the "American church," as they struggled for control of the Iñupiaq.

Additionally, Urvina draws on details from his mother's childhood as an orphan, raised at Brevig Mission, to make sense of how government policy and religious objectives shaped her early life-policies and objectives that caused damage that reverberated through his family. In bringing together personal and regional history, he is presented with a greater understanding of the person she became, and reveals a lively account of the men and women who arrived to capture the Great Land for Christ. Urvina's extraordinary position as a researcher with new resources, and a man of mixed ancestry trying to make sense of his family's past, offers scholars and casual readers a look into a colonial legacy that resonates today.

"More Than God Demands" is available for purchase through the UA Press website and at the UAA Campus Bookstore. For more information about this title and many more, please visit uapress.alaska.edu or call (800) 621-2736.

For more, visit the UAA Campus Bookstore podcasts page to hear Anthony and Sally Urvina discuss the book (their talk is currently #5 on the linked page).

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