The Return of the Vanished Library

In the old crumbling city of Alexandria, along the Mediterranean, a library is being constructed. Similar to cities in China, Alexandria has decided that its past is may well be the key to the future with the Egyptian government’s attempt to rebuild the Ancient Library of Alexandria. Originally founded by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. the city was the intellectual capital of the Mediterranean for many centuries only coming to decay as the centuries wore on. The Great Library was built by Ptolemy Soter, a general of Alexander, and his descendants to help legitimize their reign and contained the wisdom of the ancient world. Throughout the centuries the city experienced decay with only a brief renaissance caused by European investment, this ended abruptly with the Nasser Socialist revolution with the confiscation of foreign business. The quote, “The city is like the decaying stage set of a play that closed half a century ago, its actors long dead, their place taken by man and women engaged in a drama with a different plot and characters” best characterizes the present Alexandria.

Today Alexandria is an old crumbling city with similarities to the Pyramids at Giza where politics have taken the place of scholarship for control of the Library. With scholars being ignored concerning the purchasing of books e.g. 30,000 old books were placed for sale at $1 each because the Zahran, head of the Library project, only wanted new books. Originally a dream of both UNESCO and Egypt the Library has become a behemoth without the staying power due to corrupt government bureaucrats. In an ironic twist as the library is being built the Egyptian government his banning books that it deemed against its best interest or anti-Muslim.

In the end the Library is a dream of a few to restore the past glories of Egypt in an environment that places politics over cultural heritage.