Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees are co-authors of two books, The Tsarina's Lost Treasure: Catherine the Great, a Golden Age Masterpiece, and a Legendary Shipwreck, published in 2020 and The Last Stand of the Raven Clan: A Story of Imperial Ambition, Native Resistance, and How the Tlingit-Russian War Shaped a Continent, which was just published a few months ago and is the subject of today’s interview. Gerald Easter is a political science professor at Boston College, focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe. Reconstructing the State , published in 2000, examines the personal networks and informal sources of power than contributed to the expansion of the Soviet control over its multi-ethnic satellite states, as well as to the empire’s later disintegration. His award-winning book, Capital Coercion, and Post-Communist States , published in 2012, explores the disparate outcomes, democratic vs. authoritarian, of post-Soviet satellite states. Mara Vorhees is a travel writer and photographer who has contributed to over forty guidebooks published by Lonely Planet , about such diverse destinations as New England, Central America, and Russia. She also the creator and writer of the blog, Have Twins, Will Travel: Adventures & Misadventures in Family Travel. Recorded 2/4/25.
