Into Full Flower

Through these 15 intimate conversations, Elise Boulding, an American Quaker, and Daisaku Ikeda, a Japanese Buddhist, reveal that while journeys in peace may build from vastly divergent locales and traditions, shared wisdom grows from an unwavering commitment to a better world. Throughout the book, they explore the dynamic qualities of peace cultures, including peace building as a continuum from the family to global institutions, the valuing of women’s contributions at all levels of society, and education as a holistic, lifelong process. Unique in their fresh connections between Buddhist humanism and a Quaker vision of peace, the conversations enable readers to understand peace and peacemaking not as abstract concepts, but as attitudes and practices that inform every aspect of human life.

Elise Boulding was a professor of sociology emerita at Dartmouth College, where she developed the nation’s first peace studies program. She served on the board of the United Nations University and the International Jury of the UNESCO Prize for Peace. She was the author of Building a Global Civic Future, Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History, and The Future: Images and Processes. Daisaku Ikeda is the founder and president of the Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist organization with 12 million members worldwide. He has written and lectured widely on Buddhism, humanism, and ethics, and has published dialogues with global figures such as Arnold Toynbee, Linus Pauling, and Mikhail Gorbachev.