Book description
Recreates the world of ancient Egypt, describes how the Library of Alexandria was created, and speculates on its destruction.
Why read it?
1 author picked The Vanished Library as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
The Ptolemaic kings of Egypt had a staggering ambition: to house all the books ever written under one roof, in the city of Alexandria. Parchments collected regardless of what the content of the books was, or which language the parchments were inscribed in. It was much more than a library: it was the world’s foremost research and scholarly institute at the time (around 2000 years ago) and was famed for its ground-breaking discoveries in fields of mathematics, the sciences, and many other forms of knowledge. But then the library burned down—and the fate of all those precious books has been…
From Michael's list on The best books on the best places you have never been to.
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