PEACEBUILDERS

A scattered, even haphazard biography of peace activist and Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda focuses on his friendship with his teacher, Josei Toda. Born in 1928 to a seaweed-farming family, Ikeda wanted to join the army like his four older brothers, but his father kept him at home. As a young adult after the war, he joined Soka Gakkai, a Nichiren Buddhist organization, and became a student of its leader, the unlucky-in-business Josei Toda. Working through adversities, both men expanded the organization to its current 12 million followers worldwide. Perry admits to imagining the settings of events in her short narrative bio but claims emotions, dialogue and actual occurrences all come from Ikeda’s copious writings. The ample backmatter is far more informative than the anemic, often confusing text. A four-page annotated photo album, a lengthy timeline dotted with sidebars and explanations and an excellent index make up the latter half of the book. More work integrating that information into the text would have made this a more worthwhile purchase. (Biography. 8-12)