Irish Travellers have never enjoyed a higher profile, at home and abroad, for good reasons and bad. On the one hand are the positive stories like the success of boxers such as John Joe Nevin and Tyson Fury, the popularity of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Paddy Doherty’s victory on Celebrity Big Brother. On the other are controversial news stories such as the Dale Farm stand-off and the recent convictions for slavery. Gypsy Empire delves into the heart of Traveller life, focusing on three aspects that have coloured perceptions of Travellers among the wider community: family feuds, bare-knuckle fights and trading. Many Irish Travellers are driven by the need to prove their status among their own, a powerful instinct epitomised by those who engage in brutal bare-knuckle fights. These bouts are fuelled by family feuds which sometimes erupt in vicious acts of violence. We meet many colourful characters, among them some of the world’s most prolific and gifted criminals, their self-reliance providing an edge over other crime gangs. This is a golden era for the Traveller clans which are expanding and growing like never before. Gypsy Empire takes the reader inside the hidden world of Irish Travellers.

David Crowe draws from previously untapped East European, Russian, and traditional sources to explore the life, history, and culture of the Gypsies, or Roma, from their entrance into the region in the Middle Ages until the present.

This travel book explores the forgotten countries on the edge of the new Europe—Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Uzbekistan. Mixing anecdote and reportage with history and legend, Malcomson teases out the long-running tensions between nation and empire, whether Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman or European. By the author of Tutarani: A Political Journey in the Pacific Islands.

The Roma presence in the European part of the Ottoman Empire - the Balkans - is centuries old and it is not by accident that this regions has often been called the second motherland of the Gypsies. From this region Gypsies moved westwards taking with them inherited Balkan cultural models and traditions. This book explores the history, ethnography, social structure and culture of the Gypsies in the Ottoman Empire. It is based on archival sources, mainly detailed tax registers, special laws, guild registers and court documents. Notes on Gypsies in books by foreign travellers are also included.

Originating in India, the Gypsies arrived in Europe around the 14th century, spreading not only across the entirety of the continent but also immigrating to the Americas. The first Gypsy migration included farmworkers, blacksmiths, and mercenary soldiers, as well as musicians, fortune-tellers, and entertainers. At first, they were generally welcome as an interesting diversion to the dull routine of that period. Soon, however, they attracted the antagonism of the governing powers, as they have continually done throughout the following centuries. The A to Z of the Gypsies (Romanies) seeks to end such prejudice by clarifying the facts about this nomadic people. Through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, places, events, institutions, and aspects of culture, society, economy, and politics, the history of the Gypsies and their culture is told.

In recent news coverage of the dramatic political events in Eastern Europe, Gypsies have been a favourite sidebar topic. Some of the stories have been truly horrifying, others are written condescendingly and to amuse; but what has become clear is how little we really know about this people. In a concerted effort to uncover the modern history of the Rom in Eastern Europe, the authors examine the Gypsy experience in Albania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia, with special attention to the Nazi Holocaust as well as to the record of the forced settlement and education programmes instituted by communist regimes.

Jekatyerina Dunajeva explores how two dominant stereotypes—“bad Gypsies” and “good Roma”—took hold in formal and informal educational institutions in Russia and Hungary. She shows that over centuries “Gypsies” came to be associated with criminality, lack of education, and backwardness. The second notion, of proud, empowered, and educated “Roma,” is a more recent development. By identifying five historical phases—pre-modern, early-modern, early and “ripe” communism, and neomodern nation-building—the book captures crucial legacies that deepen social divisions and normalize the constructed group images. The analysis of the state-managed Roma identity project in the brief korenizatsija program for the integration of non-Russian nationalities into the Soviet civil service in the 1920s is particularly revealing, while the critique of contemporary endeavors is a valuable resource for policy makers and civic activists alike. The top-down view is complemented with the bottom-up attention to everyday Roma voices. Personal stories reveal how identities operate in daily life, as Dunajeva brings out hidden narratives and subaltern discourse. Her handling of fieldwork and self-reflexivity is a model of sensitive research with vulnerable groups.