Unbowed
Wangari Maathai

This charismatic and strong Kenyan woman Wangari Maathai talks about her incredibly intense life. In this book W. Maathai shares with the reader memories of her childhood, when only through a coincidental course of events her mother decided to send her to school; her studies at university in Kenya and in the USA, her obtaining a Doctorate degree, founding the renowed Green Belt Movement, struggle in defending women’s rights, a number of futile attempts at helping to bring about a societal change during a dictatorial regime of president Daniel arap Moi, receiving the Nobel Prize, or her work at the ministry of environment. W. Maathai led a movement of activists in a long fight to create new forested areas and/or defend the ones that were already in existence. The government and thugs hired by the government repeatedly used violence against them. Despite this, W. Maathai and other activists just continued in their resilient fight.

In this refreshingly revisionist history, Erik S. Reinert shows how rich countries developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism, and strategic investment—rather than through free trade. Yet when our leaders lecture poor countries on the right path to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the fact that our economies were founded on protectionism long before they could afford the luxury of free trade. How Rich Countries Got Rich… will challenge economic orthodoxy and open up the debate on why self-regulating markets are not the best answer to our hopes of worldwide prosperity.More