4.7 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 15 May 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Today we explore the famed city of Timbuktu. How did it grow from a trading post on the edge of the Sahara to a major centre of trade, learning and culture at the height of the Islamic Golden Age?
Joining us is Kai Mora, a writer, historian and PhD student in African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Kai takes us on a tour of the city's history, and explains its enduring legacy in the face of colonial disruption and conflict.
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and James Hickmann, and edited by Tim Arstall.
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0:00.0 | I'm always up before the birds and the kids. |
0:02.9 | Good thing Costa Express is always up too. |
0:07.0 | Early starts are easier with great coffee. |
0:09.7 | And if I grab one for Bob, I might even get some decent company. |
0:14.5 | Large cappuccino for the bloc who's half asleep. |
0:17.2 | Oh, you legend. |
0:19.6 | Now that's a proper coffee. Should kick in Justin Samfut, |
0:22.5 | remember which end of the screwdriver to use. Hmm. Costa Express, quality coffee every time. |
0:32.1 | Hi, buddy. Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. When we landed, we saw instantly that the airport had been blown apart by a |
0:38.8 | bomb. We crunched across broken glass to pass through the arrivals lounge. I always remember the |
0:45.4 | ceiling panels hanging down. The sort of walls and partitions, usually so strict at an airport. |
0:52.5 | They were all rent a Sunday. We just walked wherever we wanted. |
0:55.8 | There's something very jarring about saying the familiar signs |
0:59.5 | that govern our modern world. |
1:02.3 | Utterly disrupted. |
1:04.2 | We live and die by the exit sign, the arrivals arrow. |
1:09.0 | To do this, do that, stop the car here. Public signage, it almost |
1:12.6 | feels like the kind of hallmark of modern complex industrial living. So when you see those |
1:18.1 | kind of signs defiled and upside down and broken on the floor, it makes you question the whole |
1:23.8 | basis of how we live and organise ourselves. |
1:29.7 | Basically realise how artificial everything is. |
1:37.8 | And one of those smashed signs had one of the world's most famous place names, Timbuktu. |
... |
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