In an excerpt from The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, Joshua Hammer describes one collector’s quest to preserve the rare manuscripts hidden away across Africa. Abdel Kader Haidara signed on as a ...

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In the West African nation of Mali, residents of Timbuktu were cheering in the streets Monday, after the city was liberated by French and Malian forces after months under the harsh rule of Islamist ...

SEVARE, MaliMalian soldiers entered the city of Timbuktu on Monday after al Qaeda-linked militants fled into the desert having set ablaze a library that held thousands of ancient manuscripts ablaze.

Once again the world is watching with increasing alarm as religious extremists destroy centuries-old historical sites because they find them offensive. In 2001 it was the towering statues of Buddha in ...

Why is Christian Science in our name? Our name is about honesty. The Monitor is owned by The Christian Science Church, and we’ve always been transparent about that. The Church publishes the Monitor ...

Timbuktu. The name alone conjures mystery, obscurity and curiosity: Is that really a place? Where the heck is it? Timbuktu is in Mali, a West African country bordered by seven others, including ...

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Stepping through a low doorway into his small house, Fida Ag Mohammed sits at a table and pats a pile of books in front of him. Even in the dim light it’s clear that these are no ordinary volumes. The ...

The intriguingly unorthodox “Timbuktu,” one of five films vying for a foreign-language Oscar, is a provocative, sometimes satiric drama about the sort of Islamic extremists who make life, especially ...

Our adventure in the great African desert was triggered by an invitation extended from the Wheeler Opera House stage in fall 2004. Habib Koite, a Malian performer, spoke of the Festival of the Desert.