Another darkness, another dawn

Curatorial Note

Becky Taylor’s Another Darkness, Another Dawn offers a wide-ranging history of Roma, Gypsies and Travellers, tracing Romani migrations from South Asia through the Byzantine and Ottoman worlds and across Europe and the Americas. Rather than treating Roma as historically isolated from surrounding societies, Taylor situates their experiences within major transformations including state formation, religious conflict, nationalism, racial classification, slavery, persecution and the Roma Holocaust. Particular attention is given to the relationship between changing political regimes and the persistent regulation, exclusion and displacement of Roma and Traveller populations. Drawing wherever possible on identifiable individuals and Romani and Traveller voices, the study challenges narratives in which these communities appear only through administrative or majority-society representations. The volume provides an accessible yet substantial longue durée account of Romani history while using that history to examine broader European attitudes toward mobility, difference and belonging.