OZY (Mountain View, Calif., Jan. 12) – European fascination with Timbuktu goes back to 1375, says Mauro Nobili, a professor of history at Illinois and an expert on the precolonial and early colonial history of the sub-Saharan city. “It was then that ‘Tenbuch’ was featured on a very popular map from the Majorcan Cartographical School,” Nobili says.
