The Race for Timbuktu

The Race for Timbuktu
Author: Frank T. Kryza
Publsiher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2011-03-29
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9780062030375

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In the first decades of the nineteenth century, no place burned more brightly in the imagination of European geographers––and fortune hunters––than the lost city of Timbuktu. Africa's legendary City of Gold, not visited by Europeans since the Middle Ages, held the promise of wealth and fame for the first explorer to make it there. In 1824, the French Geographical Society offered a cash prize to the first expedition from any nation to visit Timbuktu and return to tell the tale. One of the contenders was Major Alexander Gordon Laing, a thirty–year–old army officer. Handsome and confident, Laing was convinced that Timbuktu was his destiny, and his ticket to glory. In July 1825, after a whirlwind romance with Emma Warrington, daughter of the British consul at Tripoli, Laing left the Mediterranean coast to cross the Sahara. His 2,000–mile journey took on an added urgency when Hugh Clapperton, a more experienced explorer, set out to beat him. Apprised of each other's mission by overseers in London who hoped the two would cooperate, Clapperton instead became Laing's rival, spurring him on across a hostile wilderness. An emotionally charged, action–packed, utterly gripping read, The Race for Timbuktu offers a close, personal look at the extraordinary people and pivotal events of nineteenth–century African exploration that changed the course of history and the shape of the modern world.

The Race for Timbuktu

The Race for Timbuktu
Author: Frank T. Kryza
Publsiher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2011-03-29
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 9780062030375

Download The Race for Timbuktu Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In the first decades of the nineteenth century, no place burned more brightly in the imagination of European geographers––and fortune hunters––than the lost city of Timbuktu. Africa's legendary City of Gold, not visited by Europeans since the Middle Ages, held the promise of wealth and fame for the first explorer to make it there. In 1824, the French Geographical Society offered a cash prize to the first expedition from any nation to visit Timbuktu and return to tell the tale. One of the contenders was Major Alexander Gordon Laing, a thirty–year–old army officer. Handsome and confident, Laing was convinced that Timbuktu was his destiny, and his ticket to glory. In July 1825, after a whirlwind romance with Emma Warrington, daughter of the British consul at Tripoli, Laing left the Mediterranean coast to cross the Sahara. His 2,000–mile journey took on an added urgency when Hugh Clapperton, a more experienced explorer, set out to beat him. Apprised of each other's mission by overseers in London who hoped the two would cooperate, Clapperton instead became Laing's rival, spurring him on across a hostile wilderness. An emotionally charged, action–packed, utterly gripping read, The Race for Timbuktu offers a close, personal look at the extraordinary people and pivotal events of nineteenth–century African exploration that changed the course of history and the shape of the modern world.

The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
Author: Joshua Hammer
Publsiher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2016-04-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781476777405

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Describes how a group of Timbuktu librarians enacted a daring plan to smuggle the city's great collection of rare Islamic manuscripts away from the threat of destruction at the hands of Al Qaeda militants to the safety of southern Mali.

The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu

The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu
Author: Charlie English
Publsiher: William Collins
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2018-05-17
Genre: Cultural property
ISBN: 0008126658

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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

The Race for Timbuktu

The Race for Timbuktu
Author: Frank T. Kryza
Publsiher: Harper Perennial
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2006-12-26
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0060560657

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In the first decades of the nineteenth century, no place burned more brightly in the imagination of European geographers––and fortune hunters––than the lost city of Timbuktu. Africa's legendary City of Gold, not visited by Europeans since the Middle Ages, held the promise of wealth and fame for the first explorer to make it there. In 1824, the French Geographical Society offered a cash prize to the first expedition from any nation to visit Timbuktu and return to tell the tale. One of the contenders was Major Alexander Gordon Laing, a thirty–year–old army officer. Handsome and confident, Laing was convinced that Timbuktu was his destiny, and his ticket to glory. In July 1825, after a whirlwind romance with Emma Warrington, daughter of the British consul at Tripoli, Laing left the Mediterranean coast to cross the Sahara. His 2,000–mile journey took on an added urgency when Hugh Clapperton, a more experienced explorer, set out to beat him. Apprised of each other's mission by overseers in London who hoped the two would cooperate, Clapperton instead became Laing's rival, spurring him on across a hostile wilderness. An emotionally charged, action–packed, utterly gripping read, The Race for Timbuktu offers a close, personal look at the extraordinary people and pivotal events of nineteenth–century African exploration that changed the course of history and the shape of the modern world.

From Babylon to Timbuktu

From Babylon to Timbuktu
Author: Rudolph R. Windsor
Publsiher: Unknown
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2018-05-10
Genre: Africa
ISBN: 1684113504

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This carefully reserched book is a significant addition to this vital foeld of knowledge. It sets forth, in fascinating detail, the history, from earliset recorded times, of the black races of the Middle East and Africa.

The Storied City

The Storied City
Author: Charlie English
Publsiher: Penguin
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2017-05-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780698197145

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“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.

From Babylon to Timbuktu

From Babylon to Timbuktu
Author: Rudolph R. Windsor
Publsiher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2011-08-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781463411299

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Until comparatively recent times, knowledge that black Africa was the seat of highly evolved civilizations and cultures during a time when Europe stagnated was limited to a small group of scholars. That great empires such as Ghana, and later, Mali flourished for centuries while Europe slept through its dark ages almost has been ignored by historians. Thousands of years before that, as Rudolph R. Windsor notes in this enlightening book, civilizations began with the black races of Africa and Asia, including the Hebrews, who in Biblical times were jet black. Then, western Europe had no nations as such, and its stone age inhabitants had but the crudest tools and lived in caves.Because of the scarce literature on the contributions of blacks to world civilizations, most people today hold the erroneous opinion that the black races have little real history. It was not known, for instance, that the ancient Hebrews, Mesopotamians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians were black. Now, a growing body of literature is presenting the illustrious history of the blacks and their enormous contributions.This carefully researched book is a significant addition to this vital field of knowledge. It sets forth in fascinating detail the history, from earliest recorded times, of the black races of the Middle East and Africa. Dr. Windsor's discussion of Islamic civilization and the movement of the black Hebrew to all parts of Africa is edifying and absorbing. Readers, regardless to race, will find this factual story of a noble heritage a valuable enrichment to their knowledge of world history.