Originally published: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Includes index.

Beginnings -- Cultivation -- Education and the state of emergency -- American dream -- Independence-Kenya's and my own -- Foresters without diplomas -- Difficult years -- Seeds of change -- Fighting for freedom -- Freedom for Freedom -- Freedom turns a corner -- Aluta continua: the struggle continues -- Opening the gates of politics -- Rise up and walk.

Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a single mother of three, recounts her life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya. Born in a rural village in 1940, she was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her become the first woman both in East and Central Africa to earn a PhD and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government; the establishment, in 1977, of the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages; and how her courage and determination helped transform Kenya's government into the democracy in which she now serves.--From publisher description.