Michael Schiffer – författare

What if the major global and regional powers of today’s world came into closer alignment to build a stronger international community and shared approaches to twenty-first century threats and challenges? The Stanley Foundation posed that question to thirty-three top foreign policy analysts in Powers and Principles: International Leadership in a Shrinking World.Contributing writers were asked to describe the paths that nine powerful nations, a regional union of twenty-seven states, and a multinational corporation could take as constructive stakeholders in a strengthened rules-based international order. Each chapter is an assessment of what is politically possible (and impossible)—with a description of the associated pressures and reference to the country’s geostrategic position, economy, society, history, and political system and culture. To provide a perspective from the inside and counterweight, each essay is accompanied by a critical reaction by a prominent analyst commentator from the given country.Powers and Principles is aimed at both reflective practitioners of policy and policy-relevant scholars.

Casas Grandes, or PaquimÉ, in northern Chihuahua, Mexico, was home to a religious system that swept across northern Mexico and what is now the southern United States between AD 1200 and 1450. To commemorate this religion the people of Casas Grandes created striking polychrome pots with black and red geometric and naturalistic designs on a cream base. Their pottery provides a window to Casas Grandes cosmology.Looking through this window, authors Christine and Todd VanPool find a world centered on shamans who took spiritual journeys to consort with supernatural creatures. The shamans called upon horned serpents to bring rain, the lifeblood for farmers living in the Chihuahuan desert; dealt with snakes that held powers more potent than their bites; and raised, sacrificed, and buried macaws as ritual offerings to ensure water and fertility.These findings challenge long-held beliefs about Southwestern religion and force a reconsideration of the importance of shamanism in the development of social differentiation in societies around the world.

The tumultuous history of inventors and corporations who have tried to bring the electric car to the market. Amazingly, in 1900 28 percent of all cars were electric. By 1920 the electric car had all but vanished and gas-powered cars dominated the market. In Taking Charge, Schiffer deftly explores how cultural factors, not technological ones, explain the rise of gas-guzzling cars. Schiffer bring