Another Darkness, Another Dawn: A History of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers

by Becky Taylor

Vilified and marginalized, the Romani people―widely referred to as Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers―are seen as a people without place, either geographically or socially, no matter where they live or what they do. In this new chronological history of the Romani,  Another Darkness, Another Dawn  demonstrates how their experiences provide a way to understand mainstream society’s relationship with outsiders and immigrants.
 
Becky Taylor follows the Gypsies, Roma, and Travelers from their roots in the Indian subcontinent to their travels across the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires to Western Europe and the Americas, exploring their persecution and enslavement at the hands of others. Rather than seeing these peoples as separate from society and untouched by history, she sets their experiences in the context of broader historical changes. Their history, she reveals, is ultimately linked to the founding of empires; the Reformation and Counter-Reformation; numerous wars; the expansion of law, order, and nation-states; the Enlightenment; nationalism; modernity; and the Holocaust. Taylor also shows how the lives of the Romani today reflect the increasing regulation of modern society. Ultimately, she demonstrates that history is not always about the place of Gypsies remains as contested and uncertain today as it was upon their first arrival in Western Europe in the fifteenth century.
 
As much a history of Europe as of the Romani,  Another Darkness, Another Dawn  paints a revealing portrait of a people who still struggle to be understood.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Historical

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Richard Kerridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

A much needed book highlighting the poor treatment the travelling community have faced for hundreds of years.
Expertly researched and written.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent overview of state attempts to control the Roma, focusing particularly on the UK, France, Germany, and Bulgaria. Very thorough and readable.

[Patrick Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not really a history of 'Gypsies, Roma, and Travellers' so much as a history of how various European states have treated marginal nomadic peoples in their midst, from the Byzantine era onward. The author (a lecturer then at Birkbeck and now at UEA) is a historian of migration rather than of the Roma per se, and this colours every aspect of the book. It's certainly an academic monograph, and in places reads like a PhD thesis (although I don't think it was one)

Unlike most academic monographs, though, it takes on clearly an extremely ambitious topic in a slim book. The pace is certainly fast, but it's a pretty fairly read and seems well-researched and referenced. I certainly learnt a good deal.

[Lawrence Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

On Gypsies and Travelers

The book -which grew out of a dissertation - is probably the best book ever written on this marvelous, mysterious culture.