Take The Storied City: The Quest For Timbuktu And The Fantastic Mission To Save Its Past Drafted By Charlie English Expressed As E-Text

Book Smugglers of Timbuktu is a genuinely fascinating piece of both investigative journalism and narrative history, The author, Charlie English, seamlessly weaves a thousand years of myth and history on the heart of Africa, with the possibly exaggerated tale of some astonishingly brave librarians in the time of a Jihadist occupation.


The historical elements are thoroughly researched, well documented and, in what is the greatest compliment you can give to this sort of popular history, it reads as if you're having a chat with the author in the pub.
The exploration of the past of Timbuktu, and actually, more than that, of European mythologising some good, some horrifically racially motivated in nature is well wrought from start to finish, and none of the detail, nor non of the flourish, feels superfluous at any stage.


The journalistic, semibiographical account of Timbuktu's brave librarians doesn't quite flow in the same way, The cast of real people are fascinating, their tales read like as the author puts it real life Indiana Jones yarns, but, even in the face of all of the strife that they dealt with during the Jihadist occupation of their city, their experiences still did not feel as if they were entirely written in their own words.
There are value judgements here, small ones, I grant you, but they undermine the sheer bravery of the act undertaken by the librarians with a pulling out of the rug from under an act that they should, quite rightly, be proud of.


I would definitely recommend this book, Both elements of it, in fact, This is a fascinating story that I had no idea about, and I don't recall it appearing in the news at the time, so please pick this up, become engrossed in the history, and critically appraise everything.
This is honestly worth the price of admission, Timbuktu is a name that's had a hold on the western imagination for centuries, In this book, Charlie English traces the history of foreign fascination with the fabled city, drawing parallels between the dangers faced by the European explorers who tried to find it and the attempts by the city's modern inhabitants to save their priceless manuscripts from destruction at the hands of Islamists.


English describes past and present in vivid detail, and pushes further than the standard popular history account in not being content to accept the mythology of the manuscripts and their rescue at face value.
His scepticism, and the way in pushes back against the easy but adrenalinefilled narrative, is refreshing, Overall an engrossing read.

I do wish the photo inserts had been printed in colour, though, It's so difficult to get a decent grasp of the materiality of the manuscripts when they've all been flattened out into black and white.
Surprise Ending

Throughout the telling of the parallel stories about the exploration of Timbuktu and manuscript creation, the author faithfully recounts what he gathered from historical texts and reliable modern sources.
I found these histories fascinating, though difficult to follow at times due to the foreign sounding names and places, Thank goodness I was reading on Kindle, I made extensive use of the find in text features to remind me of the people, places, and relationships,

The author writes very diplomatic ending implying that just as the exaggerated tales of gold covered buildings in Timbuktu were found to be overrated legend, some aspects of the importance and evacuation of Timbuktu's documents are likely exaggerated.
However, this should not deter anyone from reading the collection of ancient and modern adventures, Nor should we underestimate the value and validity of the thousands of preserved documents, We should remember that ancient storytellers were just as likely to exaggerate as modern sources, The real truth of the literate cultures of ancient Western Africa should be marveled and believed to be true, Just remember that history is written by the victors, who face the option to rewrite ancient history to conform with their own view of their present importance.


Overall this is an amazing story that has been largely ignored in our Eurocentric history books, The Storied City/USA The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu/UKby Charlie English, Subtitled everywhere as “the quest for Timbuktu and the fantastic mission to save its past,” this is very pleasant read to satisfy adventurers and librarians.
In subject matter similar to the Hammer book but much, much better in my view, Alternating chapters tell the story of the European search for Timbuktu in theth century and the books that have come to highlight the city written starting in theth century.
Abdel Kadera Haidara is the hero of thest century rescue of books which have yet to be translated Heinrich Barth is the hero of the auslanders.
The author clearly has a passion for both stories and a writing style to illuminate both of them, For more authority on the subject read The Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu by Alida Jay Boye based on the work of John Hunwick, a gem of a book.
This book was given to me by a family member as an Xmas present, Otherwise, admittedly knowing nothing about Timbuktu and its history and having other more pressing issues and topics to read about I probably never would have read it.


On the one hand, I am glad I did, I learned a tremendous amount about the history of European efforts to find the city, In the course of relating that history in a highly readable, narrative, journalistic rather than academic style the author taught me as much about European prejudice, and ignorance as about Islamic culture over the ages.
I came away very impressed with the extent to which the people there built and sustained empires of political and intellectual power for centuries.


On the other hand, there were aspects of the book which I found to be lacking, The maps were poorly done, Many locations noted in the text of the book were not shown on the maps, It was also cumbersome to have to flip back and forth from the text to the front of the book where the maps were.
More maps at the beginning of each chapter about the explorers would have been much more user friendly,

The portraits and photos were good, More of them would have been even better, The city seemed so exotic, if not alien, that some depictions of what it might have looked like over the centuries would have been helpful.
Some portrait painting of the explorers and photos of the current day people described in the book were included, More would have been better,

As with any book which provides a broad and sweeping history of a place and its people covering a long period of time there are A LOT of names, dates, and places to try to recall.
For the more serious history reader it might require a second reading or follow up with some of the books noted in the references.
For a more casual reader like me one can come away with a pretty clear sense of patterns and trends as well as a new found appreciation of just how sophisticated the cultures were in that part of Africa hundreds of years ago.


Overall it is a well researched and readable book that others like me who know nothing about the city's history and culture will probably find worthwhile.
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