Description

What if conflicts at home, conflicts at work, and conflicts in the world stem from the same root cause? And what if individually and collectively we systematically misunderstand that cause, and unwittingly perpetuate the very problems we think we are trying to solve?Through an intriguing story of parents struggling with their troubled children and with their own personal problems, “The Anatomy of Peace” shows how to get past the preconceived ideas and self-justifying reactions that keep us from seeing the world clearly and dealing with it effectively. Yusuf al-Falah, an Arab, and Avi Rozen, a Jew, each lost his father at the hands of the other’s ethnic cousins. As the story unfolds, we discover how they came together, how they help warring parents and children to come together, and how we too can find our way out of the struggles that weigh us down. The choice between peace and war lies within us. As one of the characters says, “A solution to the inner war solves the outer war as well.” This book offers more than hope — it shows how we can prevent the conflicts that cause so much pain in our lives and in the world.From Publishers WeeklyThe premise of this follow-up to Leadership and Self-Deception is simple: people whose hearts are at peace do not wage war, whether they’re heads of state or members of a family. In this semi-fictional narrative (“inspired by actual events”) illustrating the principles of achieving peace, the setting is a two-day parent workshop at an Arizona-based wilderness camp for out-of-control teenagers, but the storyline is a mere setting for an instruction manual. Workshop facilitators Yusuf al-Falah, a Palestinian Arab whose father was killed by Israelis in 1948, and Avi Rozen, an Israeli Jew whose father died in the Yom Kippur War, use examples from their domestic lives and the history of their region to illustrate situations in which the normal and necessary routines of daily life can become fodder for conflict. Readers observe this through the eyes of one participant, a father whose business is in nearly as much trouble as his teenage son. The usefulness of the information conveyed here on how conflicts take root, spread and can be resolved more than compensates for the pedestrian writing.