The Gypsies

Since most of my research involved ancient Rom culture, it became overly apparent that most sources were very slanted by their authors and times. Also it was hard to get many illustrations or pictures from back then. Not so here. The entire book is a great overview of Gypsy history during ancient times. There are maps, woodcuttings, tapestries, pictures of all sorts as well as a wonderful ammount of information--definitely a must for a great overview when researching the Roma from the start.

i hadn't realized before reading this book that Gypsies are a people with their own language called Roma,and a distinct culture.I thought previously they were nomads,and i've seen all the stereotypes in movies about them being fortune tellers and all of their other dubious enterprises.This book shows another side,the Gypsies as skilled labor particularly in metallurgy and their exploitation by European powers and businesses as cheap day labor and then cast aside. The change I noted in the book was when Austria under Marie Therese began to try and deal with Gypsies as a people and not as a "social problem".From then on its been progress and then retreat the low point during Hitler's regime.The Gypsies seem to have developed their own methods of survival in a world not altogether friendly to their lifestyle. Their excellence at forgery left me in wonderment,particularly in regard to passports and birth certificates.A person could be a descendent of the Gypsies and not even know it,thinking they were pure "anglo" or whatever.that could throw a wrench in a person's geneological research.This books also uses lots of statistics to trace the Gypsy population and where they reside,they apparently are easily adaptable to their host nation yet maintain their distinctness.yet as time progresses it is even harder to distinguish them from the citizens of the states they reside in.Convenience and the uni-culture dissolves almost all the ethnic lines.

An epic account of the Gypsies. Although shallow on some details and not current enough in terms of looking at contemporary populations this survey of Gypsy history is an important account. Although the author does not fully explain the origins of the Romani and he does connect the importance of the `wandering Jew' stereotype to the gypsy phenomenon this book does give a complete account of relations with and among the Gypsies from their original immigration to Europe to the present. Gypsy's are present in every major European country, and in some eastern European countries they makes up a large percentage of the population. Poor and wretched the Gypsies are phenomenally misunderstood and understudied, unlike the Jewish Diaspora which is well documented due to Jewish literary traditions and academic heritage the Gypsy's are a people lost to words and a people that deserve books like this one chronicling their ways and customs and plights. One factual error may be present in this book, in an early chapter the author assumes the description `Egyptians' applies to Gypsy's, the authors conjecture is most likely incorrect as `Egyptian' probably meant `Arab' or North African muslim. A minor error that should not detract from the book as a whole.

One of the greatest books about Gypsies I've ever read. Fraser is skilful historian with necessary distance from controversial theme of his analysis. Only if you're looking for insight of individuals, you won't be satisfied.

This is a wonderful book for those interested in the history of the Roma. It does generalize some of the finer points of the history, but it still works because of the fact that the author had to deal with so much information to put into one book. If you can only buy one book on the history of the gypsies, this is the one!