Unbowed

Colonization has left a lingering legacy on all affected nations. In Unbowed, Wangari Maathai Muta describes the direct and indirect impact of colonization, via her life experiences in colonial and post-colonial Kenya. The Nobel Peace Prize recipient was ultimately able to use some of the tools left by the British, such as the British court and parliamentary system, in order to dismantle some of the most destructive remnants of the colonial enterprise. Maathai Muta's life and legacy embodies the central irony of the post-colonial era: that the evils of colonization can be counterbalanced by colonialisms' own political, economic, and social institutions. Maathai Muta's story focuses on the environmental impact of colonization: an economic and political model based on the exploitation of both labor and land. It is this type of multifaceted exploitation that characterizes the worst of colonization. Yet it was because of colonization that Kenya and other African...
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