Abdel Kadar Haidara had travelled across the Sahara, salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscript and preserving them in a beautiful library, until al-Qaida showed up. In The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, Joshua Hammer ’79 tells the story of how Haidara became one of the world’s greatest and most brazen smugglers, saving the texts from sure destruction.
