A Quest for Global Peace

Rotblat and Ikeda on War, Ethics and the Nuclear Threat

Joseph Rotblat, Daisaku Ikeda

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9781845112790
• eBook ISBN: 9780857731975
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

One of the 'inventors' of the nuclear bomb, Sir Joseph Rotblat very soon turned away from weapons research to make a prolonged and principled stand against the dangers of nuclear proliferation. A physicist of great brilliance, he metamorphosed into a campaigner of admired moral conviction and leadership. This series of dialogues between two leading ethical thinkers brings together the courage and humanity of Rotblat with the spiritual wisdom and global visionary outlook of Daisaku Ikeda, the leader of the world's largest and most influential lay Buddhist organisation. Together they reflect on fundamental issues of war and peace, the ethics of nuclear deterrence and the trajectory of Joseph Rotblat's career, from the Manhattan Project to the Pugwash Conference and his Nobel Prize. Rotblat's life-long mantra was that scientists have a moral responsibility to save lives, not destroy them. The integrity of both writers emerges powerfully and inspiringly from their wide-ranging discussions, which serve as a stark warning against the dangers of a resurgent atomic weapons race.

Table of contents

• A Quest for Global Peace
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface
• Preface
• Chapter 1 One World, One Table, One Will to Unring the Nuclear Bell: Pugwash
• Chapter 2 Hiroshima and Nagasaki: From Japan’s Ground Zero to the World
• Chapter 3 Living History: To Survive, to Study when the World is at War
• Chapter 4 The Conscience of a Nuclear Physicist: Quitting the Manhattan Project
• Chapter 5 The Power of a Name: The Russell–Einstein Manifesto
• Chapter 6 From Hiroshima to Norway: Pugwash Wins the Nobel Prize
• Chapter 7 The Lie of Deterrence,the Vision of Abolition
• Chapter 8 Science and Faith: The Extension of Reason
• Chapter 9 Loyalty to Humanity: Competition with a Human Face
• Chapter 10 Toward a World Without War: The United Nations and We the People
• Appendix 1 Declaration Against Nuclear Weapons
• Appendix 2 The Russell–Einstein Manifesto
• Appendix 3 The Nobel Lecture
• Glossary
• Notes