Winter, and the holiday season, is a good time for books—both reading and giving them. We could all use some reading material that inspires the activist in all of us to strive for a more just, peaceful, and healthy world, and Unbowed(Alfred A. Knopf 2006) is exactly one of these books.

Activism is a natural inclination for Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, a woman of insurmountable conviction who has never taken ‘no’ for an answer. She began her work with the simple yet radical activity of encouraging women to plant trees in rural communities in Kenya. Her work as a prominent, unyielding leader in the environmental movement in her home-country gained international attention and revealed that one charismatic individual can build a powerful and positive social movement. Unbowed, Maathai’s memoirs, published by Knopf this year, read like a fairytale for the global environmental movement, and should serve as an inspirational manual for the current generation of activists worldwide who refuse to take no for an answer.

Despite growing a bit didactic at times, Unbowed reads like the true-tale of a larger-than-life global super-heroine. She pens herself as a fierce feminist with an innate concern for her society and the environment. Growing up in rural, colonial Kenya, Maathai was fortunate to receive any formal education, let alone one that opened up the opportunity for her to attend high school, and eventually, college in the United States. Though she never overtly admits that her education in the US lead her to engage her activist tendencies, she suggests that her educational experiences and the activist movements to which she was exposed in the United States solidified her own conviction as an activist. She openly notes that her exposure to the Civil Rights Movement while studying in the US left a lasting impression, one that understandably impacted her activism upon her return to Kenya.

While Maathai's memoirs may not be the most beautifully constructed, from a literary standpoint, they certainly present the story of one woman's incredible conviction to make a difference in her country and in the world which is in and of itself remarkable.

Read more about Wangari Maathai in the WorldChanging archives:
Kenyan Environmentalist Wangari Maathai Wins the Nobel Peace Prize
Maathai's Prize Links Environment to Peace
"Africans can do it for ourselves"