Over the last 500 years the ghetto has accrued numerous contrasting and complex meanings; from the heart of Jewish culture in late medieval Western Europe and a more free-floating concept in the 19thcentury, to the Nazi definition and the ghettoization of African-Americans. Bryan Cheyette, author of The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction, looks at why and when urban, racial and colonial ghettos have appeared, in the company of journalist and author ...