Скачать или смотреть The African City With More Books Than Paris

At the height of the Mali Empire, Timbuktu was the intellectual epicenter of West Africa. The University of Sankoré, along with two other major institutions, formed a university complex that rivaled Europe’s greatest centers of learning.

It’s estimated there were between 300,000 and 700,000 manuscripts, covering subjects from poetry to advanced astronomy. The book trade was so profitable that some volumes cost more than a horse.

The city was a strategic hub on the trans-Saharan trade routes, connecting the exchange of gold, salt — and ideas.

With colonization, many manuscripts were stolen or destroyed — not because they lacked value, but because they contradicted the European narrative of a “primitive” Africa.

Today, local projects work to digitize and preserve what remains, proving that the history of knowledge is not exclusive to the West. #shorts