Underground Libraries of the World - The Civilization Archives Series, #1

Here is a mid-range book description:

Civilizations are not built solely with stone, steel, armies, or governments. They are built with memory. And memory survives because someone chooses to protect it.

Throughout history, countless individuals risked imprisonment, torture, exile, and death to preserve knowledge that others sought to destroy. Some were scholars. Some were monks. Some were librarians. Many were ordinary people who simply refused to allow civilization's memory to disappear.

Underground Libraries of the World travels across continents and centuries to uncover the hidden archives, secret collections, and forbidden books that survived war, conquest, inquisition, revolution, and the systematic destruction of the written word. From the desert caves of Qumran to the bombed libraries of Sarajevo. From the monastic vaults of medieval Europe to the manuscript rescues of Timbuktu. From the forbidden collections behind the Iron Curtain to the underground archives assembled in the rubble of modern conflict zones.

This is the story of the people who understood that civilization's memory requires active, courageous, and sometimes costly protection — and who acted on that understanding at extraordinary personal risk.

Character count is approximately 1,050 — solidly mid-range.