No Enemy to Conquer: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World

by Michael Henderson, Dalai Lama XIV (Foreword)

Offering dramatic evidence of the transformative power of forgiveness, No Enemy to Conquer shares the stories of people of diverse faiths and cultures who, despite all odds, found the courage to reconcile with their enemies. Gathering the voices of Desmond Tutu, Benazir Bhutto, Rajmohan Gandhi, Jonathan Sacks, the Dalai Lama, and others, Henderson s masterful anthology is an inspiring step toward a geopolitics of mercy.

Genres: Nonfiction

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

You'll find my bio on my website at www.michaelhenderson.org.uk

My new book has been reviewed in Publishers Weekly. See below:

Review of NO ENEMY TO CONQUER, in Publishers Weekly Dec 15, 2008

No Enemy to Conquer: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World Michael Henderson, foreword by the Dalai Lama. Baylor Univ., $19.95 paper (234p) ISBN-978-1-60258-140-1
Henderson (From India with Hope), whose Irish Protestant family sought reconciliation with their Catholic compatriots, may be just the sort of eloquent messenger the world needs to understand the utility and not just the symbolic value of forgiveness. Starting with the Dalai Lama’s foreword—a paean to the power of redemption—this book is a blissful read and a persuasive argument for forgiveness as a practical tool for global survival. As the author demonstrates in a discussion of (the few) American individuals and institutions that have made formal apologies for the African slave trade, history cannot be redeemed with an apology, but an apology can create a new starting point for history. Most instructive, however, are the stories of people, from Chechnya to Pennsylvania Amish country, who have suffered unspeakable acts at the hands of enemies and staunchly refuse to be consumed by victimhood. Henderson shows the real muscle behind forgiveness, avoiding preciousness and sentimentality. He writes, “Forgiveness has an image problem”—with this latest effort, perhaps no more. (Feb.)

Reviews

[Diantha Leavitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely an amazing read. If you'd like to rekindle your faith in humanity and in the power of the human spirit and dialogue, this is the book for you. I especially loved the story about the Israelis and Palestinians parents who formed the Bereaved Families Forum. It "operates on the assumption that one bereaved mother can sit down with another and the the body of grief between them will bridge them together: that a grief so personal must also be universal."

This book was written in 2009. Oh how we all wish that the efforts of the Israeli and Palestinian families to find peace could have prevented the war in 2023.

This book teaches the power of respectful dialogue and seeing the other side as human. Henderson masterfully displays stories all over the world of dialogue and resolution. This is the book that everyone needs to read today.

[Scott Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked best about this book was Henderson's interspersing of great analogies and examples throughout that illustrate his main points. He is a wide observer of the practice of forgiveness and removes the distance between conceptual and experience. There were a few gems embedded within these stories.

[Foxglow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very powerful book for me. I have struggled with forgiveness most of my life. This book put forgiveness in the largest pictures of all, foreign policy and race relations all over the world starting at home.