Facebook entry, with Mark Teeter's kind ok (more than slightly edited, citing Mr. Teeter's many achievements & yours truly's observations on Russia/USA)
Teeter & family via Facebook
Have been urging Mr. Teeter, a brilliant Russianist (hate the expression "Russia expert" [who, after all, is an "expert" on anything, except one's mortality?]), given Mark's subtle (often very funny) Facebook observations about a complicated, tormented, at times brutally aggressive/defensive part of the world (no wonder Russians and Americans have much in common?), to write a book about his experiences in Putin's Russia.
I can think of no better "Western" witness to Russia's role/struggle in history today than Mark Teeter. Full disclosure: Am a little-published semi-academic historian, and former diplomat, who studied Russia's past for years (believe it or not, given my intellectual limitations, I actually got a Princeton PhD in that "aca-field.") My dissertation was on an obscure -- to "Western" readers -- 18th century Russian memoirist and agronomist, Andrei T. Bolotov.)
BTW, unlike all too many "Russia think-tank/'strategic thinkers'" in the USA imperial capital, Mr. Teeter actually speaks fluent Russian and has lived for years in/experienced (with compassion/humor/irony) the largest country (for now?) in the world, where he has shared ideas with bright young people there while teaching in that unique -- at times odd/brutal to foreigners, if not to Russians themselves -- ever-evolving (but, of course, in what direction?) Eurasian space on our small planet.
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