Wangari Maathai's Unbowed: A Memoir
Courtney Daily
Book Review
AAAS 351
Due 12/08/11
Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai
Unbowed was written to tell the captivating life story of Wangari Maathai. Maathai was a woman from Kenya who struggled against oppression due to her gender, ethnicity, and political belief. This woman achieved many first for the women of Kenya. She established the international Green Belt Movement, earned her Ph. D, and was the first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This story gave life to what we learned in class. The movies and documentaries we watched never did the information justice. However, this book gave light to the struggles that many African people had to deal with during and after colonization.
The book starts off with giving general knowledge about the Scramble for Africa. I thought this was helpful because in class we just talked about what it was, but in Unbowed you get the sense of how it really was. The European powers split up Africa …show more content…
It allowed me to imagine what it was like to live in Africa after colonization. After reading this book I believe that the Scramble for Africa was wrong. The European Powers took this beautiful country as their property and did not once think of the people who inhabit this land. The ripped the land from its rightful owners and in doing so they depleted the ecosystem tremendously. As Al Gore said, “To some people, nature is like a giant data bank that they can manipulate at will.” (p. 203) Maathai also said that, “before the Europeans arrived the people of Kenya did not look at trees and see timber, or at elephants and see commercial ivory stock, or at cheetahs and see beautiful skins for sale. But when Kenya was colonized and we encountered Europeans, with their knowledge, technology, understanding, religion, and culture (all of it new) we converted our values into a cash economy like theirs. Everything was now perceived as having a monetary value” (p
Book Review
AAAS 351
Due 12/08/11
Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai
Unbowed was written to tell the captivating life story of Wangari Maathai. Maathai was a woman from Kenya who struggled against oppression due to her gender, ethnicity, and political belief. This woman achieved many first for the women of Kenya. She established the international Green Belt Movement, earned her Ph. D, and was the first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This story gave life to what we learned in class. The movies and documentaries we watched never did the information justice. However, this book gave light to the struggles that many African people had to deal with during and after colonization.
The book starts off with giving general knowledge about the Scramble for Africa. I thought this was helpful because in class we just talked about what it was, but in Unbowed you get the sense of how it really was. The European powers split up Africa …show more content…
It allowed me to imagine what it was like to live in Africa after colonization. After reading this book I believe that the Scramble for Africa was wrong. The European Powers took this beautiful country as their property and did not once think of the people who inhabit this land. The ripped the land from its rightful owners and in doing so they depleted the ecosystem tremendously. As Al Gore said, “To some people, nature is like a giant data bank that they can manipulate at will.” (p. 203) Maathai also said that, “before the Europeans arrived the people of Kenya did not look at trees and see timber, or at elephants and see commercial ivory stock, or at cheetahs and see beautiful skins for sale. But when Kenya was colonized and we encountered Europeans, with their knowledge, technology, understanding, religion, and culture (all of it new) we converted our values into a cash economy like theirs. Everything was now perceived as having a monetary value” (p