Gypsies: An English History - Hardcover

Gypsies in England from their arrival five centuries ago to recent times can only be followed through literary sources with various shades of demonizing or romanticizing agenda, or through legal records. Both sources are here explored to a groundbreaking extent. ... His re-examination of the widely reported 1753 trial of Mary Squires is particularly successful in getting behind the stereotypes to find clues to lived experience. (Frank Bruce, The Times Literary Supplement)

For all the challenges of the subject, Cressy does a good job in telling his story... Cressy in an academic historian, rather than a 'popular' one. This is reflected in the style which is crisp and efficient. He avoids the pitfalls of cliche that beset more sensationalist historical writing. Nonetheless, this is an accessible book, which gives us a sympathetic narrative of a people who are very much part of the English story. For that, it is immensely welcome. (History Today)

... lively, argumentative, well-rounded, wide-ranging book ... a well-balanced stance and, although broadly sympathetic, avoids special pleading. It is a qualitative not a quantitative study ... Its coverage, both in terms of its five-century chronological sweep and the breadth of its subject matter, is unquestionably impressive ... With his latest book, this exceedinly prolific historian seems certain to have yet another success on his hands. (R.C. Richardson, Times Higher Education)

A brilliantly varied and indeed monumental history... The book, handsome at 411 pages, considers Gypsies across the ages in Britain, but not without a generous international, comparative perspective early on. (Richard Lofthouse, Quad)

Excellent new book... Wide-ranging and imaginative. It is founded on solid research and will be essential reading for anybody with a serious interest in Gypsy history. (James Sharpe, Literary Review)

In his magnificent book David Cressy shows that it is possible to mine new meanings from old sources if you're prepared to read "against the grain". (Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian)

Gypsies have been described as a people without history, but David Cressy has made sure that this is no longer the case. He traces the community from first arrival in the 1500s to today's glossy TV shows and dirty evictions, with a lively eye for personal stories and a professional richness of documentation. (Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine)

An outstanding study of a much-maligned minority... [Cressy] has produced a scholarly masterpiece... Gypsies is a work of objective scholarship. It is also a colossal achievement, gathering thousands of shreds of evidence from a vast span of sources to trace the fates of English Gypsies from their first arrival among us until now... The Council of Europe decreed in 2010 that the word "Gypsy" must no longer be used, because of its "negative paternalistic stereotypes". Roma and traveller are acceptable alternatives. Cressy, however, defintely uses "Gypsy" with a capital G througout, and his scholarly masterpiece is a lifeline to the true past. (John Carey)

It is wonderful to have a comprehensive and up-to-date history of this important and topical subject, by a practised and talented historian, which does full justice to both its primary records, and its intrinsic colour and excitement. (Ronald Hutton)

An immensely readable pantechnicon of Gypsy lore. (Christina Hardyment)

Gypsies, Egyptians, Romanies, and -more recently-Travellers. Who are this marginal and mysterious people who first arrived in England in early Tudor times? Are tales of their distant origins on the Indian subcontinent true, or just another of the many myths and stories that have accreted around them over time? In fact, can they even be regarded as a single people or ethnicity at all, or are they little more than a useful concept?

Gypsies have frequently been vilified, and not much less frequently romanticized, by the settled population over the centuries, but social historian David Cressy now attempts to disentangle the myth from the reality of Gypsy life over more than half a millennium of English history. In this, the first comprehensive historical study of the doings and dealings of Gypsies in England, from their first appearance in early Tudor times to the present, he draws on original archival research, and a wide range of reading, to trace the many moments when Gypsy lives became entangled with those of villagers and townsfolk, religious and secular authorities, and social and moral reformers.

Crucially, it is a story not just of the Gypsy community and its peculiarities, but also of England's treatment of that community, from draconian Elizabethan statutes, through various degrees of toleration and fascination, right up to the tabloid newspaper campaigns against Gypsy and Traveller encampments of more recent years.