Unbowed in Our Shared Shelf

Nov 12, 2018 Dana Berglund rated it liked it

Shelves: africa, books-for-grown-ups, memoir-biography

While Wangari Maathai’s life has been rich with struggle, strife, and success, those things did not always translate into compelling storytelling in this autobiography. She begins with her birth (literally, explaining the traditions around birth and celebration, with several pages about the landscape and how it was changing in the decades before she was born), and brings us up through her political career and the Nobel Peace Prize received at age 64. There's so much to take in, so much to unders ...more

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Jan 03, 2022 Letecia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I wanted to start 2022 with inspiration. Listening to Unbowed: a Memoir not only gave me insight into Wangari's life but race in the USA as it is based/rooted in slavery and in Africa it is based/rooted in colonialism.

What an amazing woman who lived a full life.

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Sep 23, 2008 Katherine rated it really liked it

Shelves: wow-book-club-reads, international-development-reads, africa-book-reads, environment

This was an incredible book that has the reader follow the journey Wangari Maathai took build the Green Belt Movement and became this amazing African leader. She triggered in me a desire to connect with nature again and her story is inspiring in how a woman can overcome huge challenges to a cause bigger than herself. It's not a typical memoir in the sense that it brings an emotional side to it, instead it's more factual, but her passion comes through when she tells us about this environmental mo ...more

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