The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts

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.