Book Review: Unbowed

Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is like the trees that Wangari Maathai so passionately planted in Kenya - it is slow in the beginning, building its roots, but then it blossoms and grows into one of the most fascinating and inspiring reads I have read in a while. I also learned so much from this book about Kenya's struggle to have a real, thriving, democratic form of government. I did not realize that the first real elections that they had was in November of 2002!

Maathai is a very wise woman who came from humble beginnings, but through education and persistence forged this amazing journey into a Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2004. Her writings about the struggle to form a democracy through the advocacy work of many organizations, including her own Green Belt Movement, illuminated just how hard it is to have a real, democratic society. Kenya's struggle for real democracy is unfortunately way too much like many other nation-states' struggles that continue to this day. Kenya has had to battle corrupt politicians who rigged elections, used the police and their own newspaper to oppress those who worked for freedom. Kenyan politicians who were in power deliberately antagonized different ethnicities against each other in order to consolidate their own power, causing untold internal strife, displacement and cultural antagonism that lives on today.

Maathai also hits the nail on the head with one of her statements that Kenya was always a land full of many nations, but a foreign power came, drew lines on a map, and clobbered these people together into one land and now they have to learn how to live together in a government that represents all of them. This is the truth for many states in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia and is part of the reason why so much strife still occurs today in these states.

Maathai is also a strident environmentalist and makes the point why environmentalism, good government, and human rights are all tied together. It is for this reason that the Nobel Committee chose Maathai as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 2004.

I really enjoyed this book. It brought back the part of my brain that loves and is fascinated by international relations, foreign affairs, learning new histories, and realizing how so many histories are connected and influence the events and world that we experience today. I love books that leave me feeling inspired about foreign affairs than jaded (because that is what my UVA education did for me). This is one of them and it is at its core an incredible story of persistence by a remarkable woman who through her persistence managed to help change a country.


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What to Read, What to Read?

Well, with just a few weeks left to go in the year 2008 (how is that actually possible? Where does time go? Am I living in a time warp?) I am trying to decide what book to pick up and try to finish before the year is out. I recently have read a lot of good books and have enjoyed pretty much everything that I picked up to read this year, and so want to close out 2008 with some good reads.

I have a recommendation from my best friend Rebekah to read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, but she did forewarn me that it is a pretty dark, depressing book. Not sure if I should try that right before the holidays, but really, when is there ever a good time to read a depressing book? So it is Number 1 on my list to consider.

I have a book by Thomas Friedman, the noted NY Times columnist, about living green and why it is essential. I read the article that he wrote that was the precursor to this book and it really inspired me as to why the Green Revolution is the next thing that we as a generation should pursue. I enjoy reading articles written by him, but he is not a quick and easy read. Reading his stuff takes time and thought and I go into my college-reading mode, taking my time to digest, analyze, and think about what is being said along the way. I also have the book The World is Flat by him that I have not read yet, but again, it will take time to digest it.

Then there is the book, The Shack that my roommate is reading right now. I have seen some of the message boards about it on RansomedHeart.net and it seems like a good book, and an easy book to get through. I think that is just the way though that most fiction is for me - easy to get through. And especially if there is a good story to go along with it, I fly - I cannot put the book down until I finish reading the last page.

I could come up with an entire list of stuff that I want to read - in fact, if you scroll down the side of this blog, you can see one of my widgets from GoodReads, and see what books I have on my "To Get To" list. Or you can check out my Visual Bookshelf posted on Facebook for pretty much the same list, but with a couple different books listed.

Do you have any recommendations? Read anything brilliant lately? Something so good that you just could not put it down? Please let me know!