Klaus-Michael Bogdal "Europe invents the gypsies"

Klaus-Michael Bogdal's "Europa erfindet die Zigeuner. A History of Fascination and Contempt" in 2011, for which he was awarded the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding.

For 600 years, the view of the Sinti and Roma has been characterized by fascination and contempt.

Klaus-Michael Bogdal's brilliantly researched work examines the depiction of 'gypsies' in European literature and art from the late Middle Ages to the present day, from Norway to Spain, from England to Russia. Based on countless new sources, early chronicles, artifacts and Holocaust memories, Bogdal tells a history of the Sinti and Roma that spans epochs and genres.
Suhrkamp Verlag

"a highly differentiated, completely un-kitschy and at times rousing study" FAZ

"not only politically alarming, but also intellectually electrifying" Der Tagesspiegel

"This study makes stimulatingly clear, enriching, often shameful reading, for example when the Federal Court of Justice in 1956 assesses persecutions of 'gypsies' as 'security policy and crime prevention' measures against 'primitive primitive people'." DIE ZEIT