History of Timbuktu city in 1468. A Moroccan army defeated the Songhai in 1591, and made Timbuktu, rather than Gao, their capital. The invaders established a new ruling class, the Arma, who after 1612 became virtually independent of Morocco. However, the golden age of the city was over, during which it was a major learning and cultural center of the Mali empire, and it entered a long period of decline. Different tribes governed until the French took over in 1893, a situation that lasted until it became part of the current Republic of Mali in 1960. Presently, Timbuktu is impoverished and suffers from
Timbuktu Manuscripts book, "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu" by Joshua Hammer, provides vivid details about the collection of the manuscripts into libraries, and subsequent efforts to remove them to safety during the dangerous conflict, in which the Islamist jihadis threatened to destroy them. In 2017, Charlie English published "The Storied City : The Quest for Timbuktu and the Fantastic Mission to Save Its Past" which tells in alternating chapters the history of European expeditions (1795 – 1860) in search of the mystical city and the Herculean rescue efforts undertaken by Haidara and others to save the manuscripts from destruction by the jihadis