The best books on protecting cultural treasures

This is a fun, evocative account of the author retracing the steps of Hiram Bingham, the “discoverer” of the Inca citadel, Machu Picchu, published 100 years after its discovery. It’s also about the cast of characters that the author meets along the way. If you’ve ever wanted to take a long trek in the Andes in extremely rugged terrain, stumbling across Inca ruins all along the way--then this is the book for you.

This book has the best illustrations of the two main cities of antiquity that l have ever seen. Besides superb photographs (all in colour) of the ruins today, they include Peter Connolly’s brilliant reconstructions of buildings of all sorts: houses, palaces, baths, temples, forums, hippodromes, theatres, amphitheaters, insulae (blocks of flats), bars and aqueducts, plus styles in furniture, clothing, and hair. All are shown in colourful detail, many with cutaway illustrations that recreate city life of 2000 years ago with wonderful vividness. They are complemented by Dr. Hazel Dodge’s lucid, informative text. The first part covers Athens at its democratic peak under Pericles around 434BC, the second Rome at its imperial zenith some 500 years later, when it was the greatest city on earth.

This is a wonderful, uplifting story that provides a springboard for conversations about how governments don't all give their people the same rights. It showcases an incident during the pro-democracy demonstrations of the Arab Spring of 2011 in Egypt. As a bonus, this book also celebrates the tremendous value of libraries. It tells the stirring (and true) tale of people of all stripes joining hands to defend the great library of Alexandria against possible damage during the unrest.

As with the other recommended books, children are a key part of the story's action. The narration is kid-friendly and engaging and the collage-style illustrations are bright and bouyant. Finally, the back matter will intrigue readers with photographs of the library's light-filled interiors, as well as photos of the dramatic defense of the library during the demonstrations.

Has a city ever been more mythologised than Timbuktu? Sure, it has been exaggerated in Western  Orientalist imaginations - but Malians have also subscribed to, and helped to create, this myth. I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Timbuktu, and this non-fiction investigation into the “rescue” of  Timbuktu’s sacred manuscripts after Islamist attacks, is a brilliant combination of a real-life thriller and a biography of the enigmatic city herself. The realities of Timbuktu are not disappointing: it remains a well-preserved UNESCO World Heritage site, and a living city of trade, with ancient mosques and churches, erected amidst Saharan sand dunes and a bombed-out airport. The people who live here have also survived horrific violence: this book is a pretty accurate account of what did, and didn’t, happen when the Islamists came to town.

This sweeping dual-timeline novel takes readers inside the minds of German and Allied soldiers fighting to protect Europe’s artistic treasures during WWII, as well as to the 15th century court of the Duke of Milan. A portrait of one of his lordship’s mistresses, painted by Leonardo da Vinci, connects the two time periods.

I found it fascinating to travel to the frontlines of battle with the characters and search – sometimes fruitlessly – for the artwork that had been looted and hidden away by Nazi troops. This novel provides a fascinating insight into what the Monuments Men went through while trying to track down Europe’s most important cultural icons.

Dagnini’s book focuses specifically on Italy and the amazing stories of Rome, Naples, Florence, and Pisa among others. If you love Italian art and architecture, you will not be able to put this book down. Descriptions of the damage, but also how it was fixed and avoided in some cases, are truly inspiring. Without these Allied personnel, so much more could have been lost.

This is a book about a smuggling racket of looted artifacts from Greece and Italy to the United States. But on a deeper level, I loved it because it’s about two reporters – the authors – standing up to powerful institutions by exposing their extremely unethical practices. Museums have been receiving looted artifacts for decades, turning a blind eye to theft and smuggling. This book exposes how that process works. It’s a brilliant, unsettling, and inspiring read and an example of crack investigative reporting. 

The plundering of books by the Nazis, especially literature belonging to the Jewish community, is the topic of this novel. Many books are untraceable today and their legitimate owners are long since dead. Nazis confiscated literature for various reasons, some involving original manuscripts, others used to seek out the enemies of the Reich, and quantities were gathered as status indicators. Once the war was over, there were book collections taken for a second time and justified as “liberated” rather than “plundered!” 

I enjoyed the novel because it covers an aspect of the Holocaust that is rarely addressed and offers insights into what happened to many books that disappeared from Jewish collections during Nazi times. We know there was a book store on the ground floor of the apartment block in my story and that the family belonged to a publishing dynasty. But no one survives today to tell us what… show more.

I have to admit that it’s the title that drew me to this book in the first place. As a retired English teacher, the word Librarians intrigued me. A true story, The Bad-Ass Librarians opened up a whole new world of manuscripts over 500 years that I never knew existed! The courage of the preservers of these works surprised and humbled me. But, it is also a historical history of smugglers and the heroic actions of the dedicated people of Timbuktu to preserve their heritage even if it meant their death. You won’t be able to put this down.

Robert Edsel became fascinated by the story of art looting and preservation during WWII after living for a period in Florence. Being a wealthy businessman from Texas, he used his money to bring attention to the story of the men and women who fought to preserve art during WWII. He has written four books on the subject, but The Monuments Men is the most well-rounded and suitable for someone who is beginning to investigate this riveting slice of history. His book was made into a movie starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Matt Damon in 2014.