Customer Reviews

The Gypsies (The Peoples of Europe)

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I am glad I read this book--for the most part it provided what I was after. It gives a good overview of Gypsie history from what is thought to be their beginnings to the present. I was disapointed that Gypsie migration to the US is only briefly mentioned, with nothing on the status of contemporary Gypsie life here. I was very disapointed that the author could not personalize what the Gypsies went through. I realize that due to the high levels of Gypsie illiteracy, there may not be much in the way of journals, etc. However, something could have been done to personalize their experience. For instance, the author goes in to too much detail about laws enacted by European Countries to deal with Gypsies, but does not discuss how these harsh laws affected them personally. I know more about Gypsies as a group, but nothing about them as individuals.

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!

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.

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.

Easy to digest survey of the gypsies- will answer most, if not all of your questions, but don't looke here for first person accounts or narrative. It's a dry affair.

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.

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.

A little dry at first, but there is lots of information here. If you are interested in this subject, you will enjoy this book, but you have to force yourself to keep reading at times.

This 1995 reprint seems to be a revised edition of the 1992 book, as it contains a picture captioned as taken in September 1993.



It is more about the treatment of "the Gypsies" in Europe for the past 5 to 6 centuries than the Gypsies as such. In some parts, such as Wallachia, they had been turned into slaves for almost 500 years. There have been genocidal laws from medieval Britain to Nazi occupied Europe, with the latter going back with their classification even one more generation of "Gypsy blood" than they did with Jews. State kidnapping (literally) was common, Hungary even prohibited marriage AMONG "Gypsies" in order to dissolve that "ethnicity". Even Switzerland took "Gypsy" kids away till 1973, Muslim "Gypsies" had to pay those non-Muslim taxes in Muslim Europe, and Prussia didn't extent her famous tolerance towards "Gypsies". In fact, even this book carries the title "The Gypsies", even though mentioning that in 1971 an international "Gypsy" conference of 14 countries adopted the name "Rom" for themselves instead.



The reason for all of this treatment is given with not being able to deal with beggars (even Christian reformist Martin Luther wanted to stamp that out), nomadic life style and in the old days that common people dared to have no masters. Which is all true. Yet, the author leaves something out: Racism. Specifically, he leaves out Anti-Egyptianism (as in ancient Egypt). Europe was and still is obsessed with eradicating as much of Egyptian knowledge, credits, history and influence on Western culture as possible. (See "all my reviews" for a number of books covering that issue.) Depriving the Rom(a) of their Egyptian heritage is only one of many of those schemes. And this book engages in this as sick. Even though it harbors a lot of the ingredients to know better.



Language: Linguists have found links to India. The author agrees with that, yet being so nice to be upfull enough as judging: "though falling well short of certainty". 500 words have been recognized as being supposedly of Indian origin. Sounds swell. Well, that happens to be the same number of Arabian words in the German language (and approximately all other West European languages), yet nobody would claim that the Germans are Arabs. He also says that ethnicity and language has been known in human history to be switchable. That the Roma have so many diverse languages and dialects that it is virtually impossible to even list them all. That there are only a few thousand words in their language. (Which one is he talking of now?) I may add: That sounds very much like a Creole language, i.e. many diverse peoples joining and having to communicate somehow. Which is known to happen on colonial islands (Natives, diverse Slaves, successive rulers, traders), in international boarding schools - and when various nomadic peoples are grouped together by sedentary society and themselves. He avers there wouldn't be any or only few Arab words in Romani. Other sources disagree, further sources say, those Arab words are largely mistaken, being ancient Egyptian in reality, from which Arab is derived. He, however, claims, historic historians have to be wrong saying, a lot of Koptic/Nubian (Lesser Egyptian) vocabulary is/was contained in Romani.



History: "there is a pall of obscurity over what was happening", referring to the unknown reason for the exodus from India. (Which by contrast is known for Egypt.) He admits that the Roma probably branched off BEFORE moving into India and that Dravidian is NOT an Indo-Aryan language. (As it has been suggested that the non-white original Indians had to flee the imposed racist caste system.) He also admits that the Indian-origin theorists are discordant about time, geographics and history, basically ANYTHING about that theory. That a 1980s TV-series in Greece with that theory caused the impressionable young Roma to adopt Indian dress and music, which might be mistaken as original in 50 years. That noble Gypsy family names, e.g. in Scotland, go back at least till the 9th century. He's even directly wondering about Gypsy presence in England and Ireland well before the advent of Gypsies in Europe. I am not kidding. I have just read a German translation of an Egyptian book ("The Ghajar"), which also believes in the Indian-origin theory, yet says the very most "Gypsies" by numbers and variations of peoples in the world still live in Egypt and surrounding countries. Angus Fraser now completely ignores the majority of "Gypsies", terming them an European people (coming from India). There are no "Gypsies" in India, at least not mentioned in any book I have read.



Music: The author avers the Roma would have taken over the national music of any country they have been to. Hmm... Curiously, he mentions always that they play the guitar, no matter wether in Rumania, Hungary, Russia, Spain. I would like to add that ancient Egyptian guitars are displayed in Western museums. But he doesn't get deterred, even mentioning that in connection with their music, they used to get called as "descendants of the Pharaos".



Religion: Roma wouldn't have any. And if, than only taken over from the respective country to get out of trouble. The reality is quite different: To get out of trouble they ADAPTED their religion to the majority religions, which in turn are DIRIVED from the ancient Egyptians' religion. The author even says that the Roma didn't take over anything such as Easter Eggs or the veneration of certain holidays, while they are venerating special saints, the official Church doesn't. Saints, which are curiously Egyptian (and not Indian I may add).



He also says that attempts of tracing skull measurements, phenotypes and blood types to anywhere in India failed. (If anybody knows any source for genetic traces to anywhere, please let me know in the comments.)



Curiously, the book lists other books in this series in preparation. Two of them - by different authors - are named "The Scots", respectively "The Picts". Which were non-white peoples to be conquered and driven into a nomadic lifestyle, to be grouped together with "Gypsies" or actually named such as in "Egyptians". Yet, Angus Fraser suggests the "Gypsies" would have come to Scandinavia from the UK and Ireland. Whereas general knowledge in that field suggests the opposite (as in PART of the non-white peoples coming from Scandinavia, the other from Egypt). For that I recommend the 1884 classic Ancient and Modern Britons: Volume One (Ancient & Modern Britons) (and Volume II) as well as Ivan Van Sertima's African Presence in Early Europe (Journal of African Civilizations). For the Egyptian origin of most of the Iberian Roma (including the Egyptian origin of the word "Rom[a]"), read Egyptian Romany: The Essence of Hispania. The latter of which also gives a fine example in what way any origin theory SHOULD be scientifically proven, not just claimed out of virtually thin air. It also explains a lot better Roma history (early Iberian), religion, music, metallurgy and language than this book does. E.g. suggesting, Ancient Egyptian would be the source of Indo-Aryan (and other) languages. The latter would explain a lot...