ON a cloudless morning in mid-September, it was not quiet around the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the modern disc-shaped library in Cleopatra's ancient hometown in Egypt. Outside, students flirted and joked on the edge of a reflecting pool. Behind them, cars whizzed by on the Corniche, the spruced-up sea road that hugs the Mediterranean. Multimedia Slide Show Alexandria Rising The New York Times More Photos » Inside, a tour guide, a fast-talking young woman wearing a bright hijab, led a group of tourists into the library's immense reading room, stopping on a wooden terrace that looked down...
photo: WN/Hend Fawzi
