Author: Charlie English
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1594634297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Book Description
“Timbuktu is a real place, and Charlie English will fuel your wanderlust with true descriptions of the fabled city’s past, present, and future.” –Fodor’s Two tales of a city: The historical race to “discover” 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 tantalizing 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 center of learning, it was home to tens of thousands—according to some, hundreds 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 fraught and fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable.
The Storied City
Author: Charlie English
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1594634297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Book Description
“Timbuktu is a real place, and Charlie English will fuel your wanderlust with true descriptions of the fabled city’s past, present, and future.” –Fodor’s Two tales of a city: The historical race to “discover” 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 tantalizing 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 center of learning, it was home to tens of thousands—according to some, hundreds 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 fraught and fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1594634297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Book Description
“Timbuktu is a real place, and Charlie English will fuel your wanderlust with true descriptions of the fabled city’s past, present, and future.” –Fodor’s Two tales of a city: The historical race to “discover” 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 tantalizing 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 center of learning, it was home to tens of thousands—according to some, hundreds 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 fraught and fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable.
First-thirtieth Annual Report ... 1896-1925 to the Legislature of the State of New York ...
Author: American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Historic buildings
Languages : en
Pages : 1142
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Historic buildings
Languages : en
Pages : 1142
Book Description
Course of Study: For the pupil
Author: Cleveland (Ohio). Board of Education. Bureau of Educational Research
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social sciences
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social sciences
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Book Description
The Far-Eastern Review
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : East Asia
Languages : en
Pages : 848
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : East Asia
Languages : en
Pages : 848
Book Description
The Best Short Stories of ... and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Short stories
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Short stories
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
Best Short Stories
Author: Martha Foley
Publisher: Mariner Books
ISBN:
Category : Short stories
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Book Description
Includes the Yearbook of the American short story, 1978-1980.
Publisher: Mariner Books
ISBN:
Category : Short stories
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Book Description
Includes the Yearbook of the American short story, 1978-1980.
Storied City
Author: Leonard S. Marcus
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781413108774
Category : Children
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
Presents twenty-one walking tours of New York City, including more than one hundred sites of literary significance and featuring more than two hundred books about New York written for young readers.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781413108774
Category : Children
Languages : en
Pages : 154
Book Description
Presents twenty-one walking tours of New York City, including more than one hundred sites of literary significance and featuring more than two hundred books about New York written for young readers.
The Best Short Stories of 1919
Author: Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Short stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 440
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Short stories, American
Languages : en
Pages : 440
Book Description
Collected Poems
Author: John Erskine
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
The Chautauquan
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description