Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. 400 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits; 24 cm

Summary

1. Two tales of a city: The historical race to reach one of the world's most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend. To Westerners, the name "Timbuktu" long conjured a tantalising paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore 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 one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, the climate, and disease. Timbuktu was rich in another way too. A medieval centre of learning, it was home to tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, on subjects ranging from religion to poetry, law to history, pharmacology, and astronomy. When al-Qaeda-linked jihadists surged across Mali in 2012, threatening the existence of these precious documents, a remarkable thing happened: a team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the manuscripts into hiding. Relying on extensive research and firsthand reporting, Charlie English expertly twines these two suspenseful strands into a fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable.

Uniform title

1. Storied city

Alternative title

1. Storied city

Subject

1. Mali
2. Libraries > Destruction and pillage
3. Islamic learning and scholarship
4. Manuscripts, Arabic
5. Cultural property > Protection
6. Libraries > Destruction and pillage > Mali > Tombouctou
7. Mali > Tombouctou
8. Tuareg Rebellion (Mali : 2012-)
9. Islamic learning and scholarship > Mali > Tombouctou
10. Discoveries in geography
11. Mali > History > Tuareg Rebellion, 2012- > Destruction and pillage
12. History
13. Destruction and pillage
14. Tombouctou (Mali) > Antiquities
15. Manuscripts, Arabic > Mali > Tombouctou
16. 2012
17. Tombouctou (Mali) > Discovery and exploration
18. Cultural property > Protection > Mali > Tombouctou
19. Antiquities

Genre/Form

1. History.

Contents

1. Prologue: Enterprise and genius -- Occupation -- A seeker of manuscripts -- A wide but extended blank -- Hell is not far away -- The fourth traveler -- Al-Qaeda to the rescue -- Frogs and rosbifs -- Ismael's list -- Destruction -- The armchair explorer -- The headless horseman -- The pope of Timbuktu -- Secret agents -- Liberation -- Lives of the scholars -- The terrible twosome -- King Leopold's paperweight -- Auto-da-fé -- Chronicle of the seeker -- An Indiana Jones moment in real life! -- Manuscript fever -- The myth factory -- Epilogue.

Call number

1. JFE 17-7022

Note

1. Also published as: The storied city : the quest for Timbuktu and the fantastic mission to save its past. New York : Riverhead Books, 2017.

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Author

1. English, Charlie, author.

Title

1. The book smugglers of Timbuktu : the quest for this storied city and the race to save its treasures / Charlie English.

Publisher

1. London : William Collins, 2017.

Type of content

1. text

Type of medium

1. unmediated

Type of carrier

1. volume

Bibliography

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological term

1. 2012

ISBN

1. 9780008126636 (hardback)
2. 0008126631 (hardback)
3. 9780008184902 (trade paperback)
4. 0008184909 (trade paperback)

Research call number

1. JFE 17-7022