John Paul Lederach, The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (New York: Oxford, 2005).

I read this book at an important point in my own life. It is easy to think of building peace as the work of diplomats and mediators without taking seriously our personal and professional relationships with others. Without paying attention, I have contributed to the acceleration of disagreement and brought less than my best to the art of finding compromise and shared values.

John Paul Lederach is clearly one of the world’s great experts in conciliation and mediation. His 1977 book, Building Peace, is clearly one of the most important books on building peace ever written. In this book, he invites us to understand the building peace is accomplished by following a roadmap or preset plan, but rather by practicing the art of listening and discovering the music of shared experience and value.

This is a must-read for our generation. We have lost our ability to imagine peace. We think of the world as a place of perpetual violence. Our moral imagination needs to be inspired. Lederach provides what is needed to inspire us.