Title Details

A Dialogue - Aurelio Peccei and Daisaku Ikeda

Long before it became fashionable to talk of climate change, drought and food shortages,
the authors of this lucid and trenchant dialogue were warning that planet earth was heading for
un-inhabitability. Exchanging viewpoints and insights that have matured over many years
of thought, study and reflection, the discussants address a number of critical questions under
three broad headings: man and nature, man and man, and the human revolution. One of
the authors is a Westerner – a man of many parts, both wartime resistance fighter and
leading industrialist, who founded one of the first organisations and think tanks to address
seriously the human prospects for global survival. The other represents the philosophical
and ethical perspectives of the East – a Buddhist lay leader who has visited country after country,
campaigning tirelessly for the abolition of nuclear weapons and war in all its forms.
Engaging constructively and imaginatively with such seemingly intractable problems as
population growth, the decline of natural resources, desertification, pollution and
deforestation, Ikeda and Peccei show that many of these problems are interrelated.
Only by addressing them as part of a web of complex but combined issues, and by working
together for peace and justice, can human beings expect to find lasting solutions. So while
recognising the scale of the challenge ahead, the authors’ message is in the end a hopeful
one. Man’s best prospect for the future lies in an ethical revolution whereby humanity can
find a fresh understanding of itself in holistic connection with, rather than separation and
alienation from, the planet itself.