Unbowed : a memoir

Format:

Book

Title:

Unbowed : a memoir

Author:

Maathai, Wangari.

ISBN:

9780307263483

9780307275202

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Physical Description:

xvii, 314 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

General Note:

Includes index.

Contents:

Acknowledgments -- 1. Beginnings -- 2. Cultivation -- 3. Education and the state of emergency -- 4. American dream -- 5. Independence -- Kenya's and my own -- 6. Foresters without diplomas -- 7. Difficult years -- 8. Seeds of change -- 9. Fighting for freedom -- 10. Freedom turns a corner -- 11. Aluta continua : the struggle continues -- 12. Opening the gates of politics -- 13. Rise up and walk -- Epilogue : canopy of hope -- Appendix : Konyeki na ithe, or "Konyeki and his Father" -- Index.

Summary:

Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a single mother of three, recounts her life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya. Born in a rural village in 1940, she was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her become the first woman both in East and Central Africa to earn a PhD and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government; the establishment, in 1977, of the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages; and how her courage and determination helped transform Kenya's government into the democracy in which she now serves.--From publisher description.

Personal Subject:

Maathai, Wangari.

Maathai, Wangari. (OCoLC)fst00202367

Corporate Subject:

Green Belt Movement (Society : Kenya)

Green Belt Movement (Society : Kenya) (OCoLC)fst00625602

Subject(s):

Green Belt Movement (Society : Kenya)

Tree planters (Persons) -- Kenya -- Biography.

Women conservationists -- Kenya -- Biography.

Women politicians -- Kenya -- Biography.

Geographic Term:

Genre:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Salem Main Library	921 Maathai, Wangari 2006	Searching... Unknown
Searching... McMinnville Public Library	923 Maathai, Wangari	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Monmouth Public Library	921 Maathai, W. 2006	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Silver Falls Library	921 MAATHAI	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Hugely charismatic, humble, and possessed of preternatural luminosity of spirit, Wangari Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a single mother of three, recounts her extraordinary life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya. Born in a rural village in 1940, Wangari Maathai was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her studying with Catholic missionaries, earning bachelor's and master's degrees in the United States, and becoming the first woman both to earn a PhD in East and Central Africa and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government. She makes clear the political and personal reasons that compelled her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages. We see how Maathai's extraordinary courage and determination helped transform Kenya's government into the democracy in which she now serves as assistant minister for the environment and as a member of Parliament. And we are with her as she accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in recognition of her "contribution to sustainable development, human rights, and peace." In "Unbowed", Wangari Maathai offers an inspiriting message of hope and prosperity through self-sufficiency.

Author Notes

Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya, in 1940. She is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, which, through networks of rural women, has planted over thirty million trees across Kenya since 1977. In 2002, she was elected to Kenya's Parliament in the first free elections in a generation, and in 2003, she was appointed assistant minister for the environment. She lives and works in Nairobi.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Maathai, a 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, presents a matter-of-fact account of her rather exceptional life in Kenya. Born in 1940, Matthai attended primary school at a time when Kenyan girls were not educated; went on to earn a Ph.D. and became head of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy at the University of Nairobi before founding Kenya's Green Belt Movement in 1977, which mobilized thousands of women to plant trees in an effort to restore the country's indigenous forests. Because Kenya's environmental degradation was largely due to the policies of a corrupt government, she then made the Green Belt Movement part of a broader campaign for democracy. Maathai endured personal attacks by the ruling powers-President Moi denounced her as a "wayward" woman-and engaged in political activities that landed her in jail several times. When a new government came into power in 2002, she was elected to Parliament and appointed assistant minister in the Ministry for Environment and Natural Resources. Despite workmanlike prose, this memoir (after The Green Belt Movement) documents the remarkable achievements of an influential environmentalist and activist. Photos not seen by PW. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Booklist Review

The mother of three, the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate, and the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Wangari Maathai of Kenya understands how the good earth sustains life both as a biologist and as a Kikuyu woman who, like generations before her, grew nourishing food in the rich soil of Kenya's central highlands. In her engrossing and eye-opening memoir, a work of tremendous dignity and rigor, Maathai describes the paradise she knew as a child in the 1940s, when Kenya was a lush, green, fertile land of plenty, and the deforested nightmare it became. Discriminated against as a female university professor, Maathai has fought hard for women's rights. And it was women she turned to when she undertook her mission to restore Kenya's decimated forests, launching the Green Belt Movement and providing women with work planting trees. Maathai's ingenious, courageous, and tenacious activism led to arrests, beatings, and death threats, and yet she and her tree-planting followers remained unbowed. Currently Kenya's deputy minister for the environment and natural resources, Nobel laureate, visionary, and hero, Maathai has restored humankind's innate if nearly lost knowledge of the intrinsic connection between thriving, wisely managed ecosystems and health, justice, and peace. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2006 Booklist

Library Journal Review

Winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, Maathai remains "unbowed" in her efforts to bring back Africa's forests and bring education to African women. With a nine-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.