Parting Words: 9 lessons for a remarkable life

What a century of life-experience can teach us about happiness, ambition, courage, love and how to make the most of the lives we've been given.


How many people do you know grew up as an immigrant in America during the Great Depression, won a scholarship to Harvard Law School, landed on the beaches of Normandy on D Day, fought at the Battle of the Bulge, was present at the liberation of concentration camps including Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Flossenburg, held leading Nazis to account at the Nuremburg trials and has fought for an International Criminal Court to hold war criminals to account the world over?

Now you know one.

Benjamin Ferencz turns 100 in 2020. In the century since he was born, he has witnessed more change, more history and more life than many of us can hope - or sometimes want - to see. He has been an immigrant, a poor boy, a rich man, a soldier, a liberator, a prosecutor, a defender, a change-maker, a son, a brother, a husband, a father and many other things besides. He has had an utterly remarkable life, and with it has come a perspective on the world unlike anyone else's. In PARTING WORDS, Ben shares 10 extraordinary, humble and compelling lessons he's learned along the way - from the subjects of courage and ambition to love, liberty, happiness and fulfilment - that we can all harness for ourselves.