The Storied City

The thrilling account of how a band of Malian librarians and archivists risked their lives to save priceless ancient manuscripts from destruction in al Qaeda–occupied Timbuktu, interwoven with the historical race to "discover" the much-mythologized city. To Westerners, the name "Timbuktu" long conjured up a tantalizing paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves were rumored to wear gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for "discovery" tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But expedition after expedition went disastrously awry, succumbing to enslavement, attack, and disease, the natural hazards of the territory exacerbated by centuries of Christian-Muslim conflict and resistance to the European "Scramble for Africa." Timbuktu was rich—really rich—in another way too. An ancient center of learning, it was home to some tens of thousands—according to some, hundreds of...