A New Humanism ─ The University Addresses of Daisaku Ikeda

`The natural sympathy and understanding of people everywhere must be the soil in which the new humanism can thrive.'

For Daisaku Ikeda, whose words these are, education has long been one of the fundamental priorities of his work and teaching. His emphasis on the intellectual legacy bequeathed to humanity by the great teachers of civilization is in this volume encapsulated by the notion of a `new humanism': a significant residue of wisdom that in the right circumstances may be passed on to future generations. expanding horizons, making connections between different cultures and encouraging fresh insights and new discoveries across the globe. These circumstances are perhaps most fully realised in the context of universities.

In promoting his core values of education and peace, the author has delivered lectures and speeches at more than twenty-five academies, colleges and research institutes worldwide. This stimulating collection, which includes the author's most recent lectures, ranges widely across topics as diverse as art, religion, culture and time, and draws creatively on the sages of ancient India, China and Japan as well as on visionary thinkers from every nation, including Tolstoy, Victor Hugo and Gandhi.

Daisaku Ikeda is the President of Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist network that actively promotes peace, culture and education whose members come from over 190 countries throughout the world. He is the author of more than 100 books on Buddhist themes, and received the United Nations Peace Award in 1983.