Until 1989 it was official Communist policy in eastern Europe to absorb Gypsies into the "ruling" working class. But many Gypsies fought to maintain their separate identity. This book is about the refusal of one group of Gypsies - the Rom - to abandon their way of life and accept assimilation into the majority population. It is a story about the sources of cultural diversity in modern industrial society and about the fear and hatred that such social and cultural difference many give rise to. The core of the book, based on eighteen months of observation of daily life in a Gypsy settlement, describes the cultivation, celebration, and reinvention of cultural difference and diversity by a people deemed by their social superiors to be too stupid and uncivilized to have a "culture" at all. The survival of the Gypsy way of life remains one of the great puzzles of modern European history. How has this despised and feared people protected itself through five hundred years of persecution? The Time of the Gypsies evokes the rhythms of the Gypsies' daily lives and leads the reader to the clues that unlock the secrets of Gypsy survival.