This book provides an understanding of Gypsies and Travellers by introducing the reader to the richness of their culture and lifestyle.

A collection of texts, in a single handy volume, issued by the European Community (the Council and the European Parliament), the Council of Europe, (including the Committee of Europe, CLARAE, CAHID and the CDCC) and other international institutions including the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, the United Nations and the UN High Commission for Refugees.

One of the greatest challenges during the enlargement process of the European Union towards the east is how the issue of the Roma or Gypsies is tackled. This ethnic minority group represents a much higher share by numbers, too, in some regions going above 20% of the population. This enormous social and political problem cannot be solved without proper historical studies like this book, the most comprehensive history of Gypsies in Romania. It is based on academic research, synthesizing the entire historical Romanian and foreign literature concerning this topic, and using lot of information from the archives. The main focus is laid on the events of the greatest consequence. Special attention is devoted to aspects linked to the long history of the Gypsies, such as slavery, the process of integration and assimilation into the majority population, as well as the marginalization of Gypsies, which has historic roots. The process of emancipation of Gypsies in the mid-19th century receives due treatment. The deportation of Gypsies to Transnistria during the Antonescu regime, between 1942-1944, is reconstructed in a special chapter. The closing chapters elaborate on the policy toward Gypsies in the decades after the Second World War that explain for the latest developments and for the situation of this population in today's Romania.

Who are the Romani people? -- Romani society -- Customs and traditions -- The Romani language -- The Roms among the nations -- Between romanticism and racism -- A modern Romani identity -- Appendix: The mosaic of Romani groups.

America has always been a land of fascinating cultural diversity. From the extremely wide range of cultural groups on the American scene today, Gypsies, or Roma, are among the most extraordinarily elusive and complex. For more than forty-five years, social scientist Anne Sutherland has researched and objectively written about the American Roma worldview. She honed traditional research methods to study the Roma, who normally obscure the truth about themselves to outsiders, dispelling centuries of misinterpretation, bias, and romanticism that have led to discrimination. In this latest work, Roma: Modern American Gypsies, she succinctly portrays their twenty-first-century lives and identifies how their realities have been shaped by global processes and agents of power. Throughout complex stages of change and adaptation, Sutherland concludes, Gypsies have managed to retain, not lose, their identity. Ideal for classes in introductory sociology and cultural anthropology, Roma is also an excellent supplement in courses on ethnicity, immigration, and American culture since Gypsy culture also vividly illustrates the strength of ethnic boundaries, the channeling of interethnic relations, subcultural differentiation, and adaptation.

This book is intended to foster a better understanding of Roma in Europe by describing their culture and lifestyle and the strength of their identity as well as the mistreatment they have suffered over the centuries. The final pages of the book set out the foundations for a program of action.--Publisher's description.