This book introduces the Original Nation scholarship to examine the historical genealogy of the nation’s struggles against the state. A fundamentally different portrait of history, geography, politics, and the role of law emerges when the perspective of the nation and peoples is placed at the center of geopolitical analysis of global affairs. In contrast to traditional and canonical state-centric narratives, the Original Nation scholarship offers a diametrically distinct “on-the-ground” and “bottom-up” portrait of the struggle, resistance, and defiance of the nation and peoples. It exposes persistent global patterns of genocide, ecocide, and ethnocide that have resulted from attempts by the state to occupy, suppress, exploit, and destroy the nation. The Original Nation scholarship offers a powerful and widely applicable intellectual tool to examine the history of resilience, emancipatory struggles, and collective efforts to build a vibrant alternative world among the nation and peoplesacross the globe.

Hiroshi Fukurai is Professor of Legal Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, and is the Immediate-Past President of the Asian Law and Society Association (ALSA). He is specialized in lay adjudication, indigenous approaches to international law, and Asian law and politics. His books include Japan and Civil Jury Trials: The Convergence of Forces (2015); East Asia’s Renewed Respect for the Rule of Law in the 21^st Century (2015); Race in the Jury Box (2003); Anatomy of the McMartin Child Molestation Case (2001); and Race and the Jury: Racial Disenfranchisement and the Search for Justice (1993, Gustavus Meyers Human Rights Award).

Richard Krooth is a practicing attorney and Research Associate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, USA. His research reveals how human-made technologies have had a devastating impact on Earth’s biosphere, and attempts to put the current planetary crisisinto the context of its historical setting. His books include Darwin’s Walk and the Last Wave: Disappearing Landscapes, Declining Species (2017); Nuclear Tsunami: Japanese Government and American Role in Fukushima Disaster (2015); and Gaia and the Fate of Midas: Wrenching Planet Earth (2009).