Johan Galtung and Daisaku Ikeda, "Choose Peace"

"The work for peace needs not not merely a handful of governments or peoples at the top, but all of us."
-Johan Galtung

"All peoples must come to realize and assimilate within themselves the idea of the supreme importance of human life."
-Daisaku Ikeda

"Choose Peace" is dialogue between Daisaku Ikeda, the president of Soka Gakkai International, and Johan Galtung, founder of the International Peace Research Institute. The book, like a long conversation, winds its way through a myriad of topics involving institutions, people, and personal experiences from a transdisciplinary perspective. One of the strong points of this work is that while they are discussing a rather lofty subject, both participants provide very specific solutions to their seemingly utopian vision, such as the restructuring of the United Nations, the reorganization of human settlements into smaller populations, and focusing education toward a curriculum of peace. Although the book is dizzying at times in its breadth, its central theme, peace as work for individuals and societies, never sends the audience adrift. As Galtung states in summing up the book, "The answer is dialoge, inner and outer, among all parties concerned."

Citation Information:
Galtung, J. & Ikeda, D. (1995). Choose peace: A dialogue between Johan Galtung and Daisaku Ikeda. Chicago, IL: Pluto Press.

Links:
TRANSCEND International
International Peace Research Institute, Oslo
Soka Gakkai International

See Also:
Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. Oslo: International Peace Research Institute.


Ikeda, D. (2001). For the sake of peace: Seven paths to global harmony, a Buddhist perspective. Santa Monica, CA: Middleway Press.

International Peace Research Institute. (1964). Journal of peace research. Oslo, Norway: Universitetsforlaget.