Across Europe, Roma and Gypsies are suffering increasing intolerance and hostility. A new populist politics, that seeks political meaning in collective experiences and values forms of solidarity rooted in town, class, community or nation, finds in the Roma a suitable target population to which ordinary citizens'' fears and frustrations can be attached. This politics draws on a rising tide of xenophobia a feeling of loss of sovereignity and democratic oversight disillusionment with political elites frustrations with the failure of welfare programmes the presentation of social and political conflicts as cultural issues and a growing rejection of the ideal of a trans-national European order. pThe Gypsy Menace's fifteen chapters range geographically from Belfast to Sofia, via Paris, Rome, Prague and Budapest. They show how, in their reactions to the presence of ten million or so Romany persons in their midst, some Europeans are testing the limits of the 'social imaginary' and beginning to