A sweeping and imaginative work spanning four centuries, Maurice Crandall's These People Have Always Been a Republic offers yet another overlooked Indigenous perspective on the broad sweep of North American history. Crandall not only sheds light on the past and enduring nature of Indigenous republics, consensus democracy, and community-based political authority but argues that these structures can perhaps serve as effective templates to stave off the climate of political cynicism and paralysis shaking democracies throughout the Americas today. In recent years, scholarship focusing on Indigenous voices, archives, infrastructure, and knowledge systems has offered similar prescriptions, from encouraging forestry management collaborations between tribes and governments, sustainable agricultural initiatives, prescribed burning, and holistic grazing practices by applying traditional ecological knowledge. In an era of dramatic climate change, policymakers, scientists, and government agencies are finally realizing how essential it is to respectfully learn from and consult with Indigenous communities. Yet political institutions are...
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