I read Unbowed by Wangari Maathai for my Society and Environment class. (By the way I'm at real college now rather than online community college. Cool right?) I actually really enjoyed this book, it was super inspiring and interesting. It's been awhile since I've really liked a book for class. I don't really feel like writing right now because I spent 4 hours in the library today writing a paper about this book so I'll just post bits from my paper. Lazy huh.
Wangari Maathai’s Unbowed was an
interesting account of a Kenyan woman’s struggle for peace, freedom, and
stewardship for the environment under an oppressive government
I think that the strength of the book
was its accessibility. She is able to explain things in a way that most people
will understand, even without any background knowledge of the history or
cultures of Kenya. The book would be just as meaningful and inspiring from a
Kikuyu perspective and it would be from a Western perspective. Before reading
this book, problems like oppressive governments were only as real to me as the
dystopian science fiction novels I’ve read. Wangari utilized geographical
concepts, universal struggles, clear language and the idea of the “shrinking”
world to help me realize that these are real issues, and they are happening in
my lifetime in the world that I share with seven billion others. It was highly
inspiring and overall a very entertaining read.
The only weakness I was bothered by was
the limitation of perspective. As a memoir, Wangari is not required to tell the
truth or lend any evidence to her allegations. Although I personally believe
that she is a good and honest person, I’m left only with this faith and her
understanding of issues to understand them myself. So one must take
this book for what it is, a memoir, and put an immense amount of trust in the
author in order to understand her life.
