Customer Reviews

The Time Of The Gypsies (Studies in the Ethnograpic Imagination)

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I have just finished reading The Time of the Gypsies with great interest. I lived in Hungary for two years and my knowledge of the Hungarian Gypsies (Rom) was based entirely on a Magyar perspective. After returning to the US I read Angus Fraser's book The Gypsies, which was a good introduction to contemporary Western scholarship concerning the Rom.

What Fraser's book left out was an understanding of how the Rom viewed themselves and how their self-concept was defined. The present volume fills that gap. It has caused me to consider the varying viewpoints of Magyars and Rom and how conflicting viewpoints lead to radically different interpretations of the economic and social activities of the Rom. Many stories I heard from Magyars now "make sense" because I can see what the other side of the story was.

The Time of the Gypsies does an excellent job of showing the very real roots of conflicts between Rom and other people without either vilifying or romanticising either side. Although not aimed at mending the rifts between the Rom and non-Rom the book does an excellent job of promoting the mutual understanding and recognition that is needed to prevent further discord.