The Challenge for Africa

#817
Title: The Challenge for Africa
Author: Wangari Maathai
Publisher:Pantheon
Year: 2009
Country: Kenya
304 pages

Audiobook.

Wangari Maathai brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and evidence to this sweeping critique of colonial and post-colonial policy in Africa. Though she often gives examples from Kenya, she addresses issues from many African nations and micro-nations. I don't agree with all of her arguments and opinions, but some are so persuasively made that I assume I ought to rethink the ones I questioned. I still have a strong impression that she reveals her own tension about how to validate and reclaim African history pre-colonialism. She has plenty to say about what's been problematic about colonial and post-colonial policies and practices, but little critique of pre-colonial life. This creates some over-valorization, but raises the excellent question of how to reclaim a suppressed and forgotten history.