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Title details for Empress of the Nile by Lynne Olson - Available

Empress of the Nile

The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction

by Lynne Olson
Lisa Flanagan
Audiobook
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New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • The remarkable story of the intrepid French archaeologist who led the international effort to save ancient Egyptian temples from the floodwaters of the Aswan Dam, by the New York Times bestselling author of Madame Fourcade’s Secret War

“A female version of the Indiana Jones story . . . [Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt] was a daredevil whose real-life antics put Hollywood fiction to shame.”—The Guardian

In the 1960s, the world’s attention was focused on a nail-biting race against time: the international campaign to save a dozen ancient Egyptian temples from drowning in the floodwaters of the gigantic new Aswan High Dam. But the coverage of this unprecedented rescue effort completely overlooked the daring French archaeologist who made it all happen. Without the intervention of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, the temples—including the Temple of Dendur, now at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art—would currently be at the bottom of a vast reservoir. It was an unimaginably complex project that required the fragile sandstone temples to be dismantled and rebuilt on higher ground.
Willful and determined, Desroches-Noblecourt refused to be cowed by anyone or anything. As a member of the French Resistance in World War II she survived imprisonment by the Nazis; in her fight to save the temples she defied two of the most daunting leaders of the postwar world, Egypt’s President Abdel Nasser and France’s President Charles de Gaulle. As she told one reporter, “You don’t get anywhere without a fight, you know.”
Desroches-Noblecourt also received help from a surprising source. Jacqueline Kennedy, America’s new First Lady, persuaded her husband to help fund the rescue effort. After a century and a half of Western plunder of Egypt’s ancient monuments, Desroches-Noblecourt helped instead to preserve a crucial part of that cultural heritage.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 28, 2023

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593677438
      • File size: 394886 KB
      • Duration: 13:42:40

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 21, 2022
      Bestseller Olson follows up Madame Fourcade’s Secret War with another scintillating biography of a woman who worked in the French Resistance against the Nazis. But Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt (1913–2011) had an even more impressive second act, according to Olson: as an Egyptologist, she spearheaded “the greatest single example of international cultural cooperation the world has ever known,” a campaign in the 1950s and ’60s to save Nubian temples and other antiquities from flooding caused by the construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt. Throughout, Olson details the misogyny Desroches-Noblecourt dealt with from her male colleagues at the Louvre and the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, even as she reached the top of her field. Beginning in 1958, she helped raised money from dozens of nations to dismantle the temples block-by-block, transport them up the Nile, and rebuild them on higher ground. Olson also credits first lady Jackie Kennedy with helping persuade her husband’s administration to support the campaign, and documents Desroches-Noblecourt’s involvement in a 1967 Paris exhibition of King Tutankhamun’s treasures. Enriched by fascinating digressions into Egyptian history, museum rivalries, the plundering of archaeological sites, the 1956 Suez Crisis, and more, this is a captivating portrait of a pathbreaking woman. Readers will be enthralled. Photos.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      The life of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt translates well to audio. This biography tells the story of the pioneering archaeologist who helped save treasures from the Louvre during WWII and was a major force behind rescuing ancient Egyptian monuments from flooding due to the building of the Aswan Dam. The book's straightforward style is well suited to audio, and Lisa Flanagan offers an able narration. Her delivery flows even during extended passages of historical background. She effectively conveys the frustrations and excitement of Desroches-Noblecourt's life, especially the challenges she faced as a woman in a male-dominated field at that time. The suspense mounts as Flanagan describes the race against time to save the giant statues of Pharaoh Ramses II. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      June 10, 2024

      Olson (Madame Fourcade's Secret War) offers a riveting biography of the pioneering French Egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt. Desroches-Noblecourt became interested in Egypt as a child in Paris just after WWI. She avidly studied archaeology while attending the �cole du Louvre, and in the 1930s, she was appointed as a project manager in the Louvre's antiquities department. She participated in efforts to safeguard the Louvre's treasures during World War II and joined the French Resistance during the war. As a curator for the Louvre, she was among the few Westerners allowed to continue her work in Egypt when the country essentially closed its borders in the 1950s. When the Aswan High Dam project was proposed, she spearheaded a global plan to save the temple of Abu Simbel and several smaller temples in the region, which were in danger of being flooded. Desroches-Noblecourt's tireless efforts, involving careful diplomacy and international cooperation, resulted in the World Heritage Site program. Lisa Flanagan's superb narration enhances the telling of this remarkable story, communicating Desroches-Noblecourt's passion and tenacity in daunting and often unfriendly circumstances. VERDICT Fans of history and Egyptology will be inspired by Olson's account, which narrator Flanagan delivers with clarity and nuance. A gripping and highly recommended audio.--Joanna M. Burkhardt

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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