Adam Herriott on bringing history alive
Resistance by Steve McQueen published by Monument Books
The highly respected British film director and visual artist Steve McQueen has put together a really interesting book of stunning photos and insightful commentaries about resistance and social movements in Britain. McQueen’s book is an original and welcome contribution to the history of British social movements and protest. Stretching across 250+ pages, Resistance has dozens of inspiring and fascinating photographs, combined with accessible text that goes with them. The scope of the book covers a hundred years, from the women’s suffragette movement in 1903 to the 2003 anti-Iraq war protest march.
Most broad histories of this sort do not have the range of different people who have written each chapter or with their personal insights and knowledge. Many of the contributing writers have radical politics that they share openly with the reader. This is a refreshing change from other histories of British social movements, which are often more academic and neutral in their approach. The photographs, combined with the text, really bring the different struggles alive. I have a hard copy of the book, and it is a beautiful thing.
The introduction is written by Emma Lewis, who is the curator at the Turner Contemporary in Margate, which exhibited photographs from the book in early 2025. There is also an exhibition of the photographs showing in Edinburgh from August 2025 to January 2026. Lewis’s introduction is excellent, as she highlights many of the key learnings from social movement struggle. It starts with a clear statement that progress in society comes from struggle. Lewis also makes clear that the struggle never ends, as these hard-fought-for rights can be taken away. We can currently see this happening around the world, including in the UK. As Lewis explains, a worse world is possible, and there are people working hard towards that very end.
Lewis describes the suffragettes’ long struggle for women to win equal voting rights, which was fought over many generations. They did not know if they would make any progress, but they were unable to tolerate being treated as second-class citizens. Lewis reflects on how most protest events were not photographed and also on the power of those who take photos, especially in the early days of the medium. We can see that power in this book.
She makes clear how resistance leads to hope, and how taking action and the feeling of agency change people. It certainly has for me. Another key point she makes is that acts of resistance and solidarity can only be collective. Lewis also shares some interesting commentary on British political culture compared to other countries, such as France and the US, which both experienced revolutions. Instead, she argues, the British radical tradition prefers incremental compromise, reform over revolution, and avoids excess, grand narratives, and lofty ideals. She ends her introduction with a celebration of the importance of music and joy in resistance and protest movements.
Lewis contributes a second chapter on visual representations of resistance, giving a history of the importance of photography throughout the period covered in the book. This is followed by ten chapters on different forms of resistance, protest and struggle in the twentieth century. In the first half of the century, these included the suffragettes, the unemployed/hunger marches and taking on the fascists in the 1930s. In the second half of the century, there are chapters on anti-slavery, anti-racism and anti-colonial struggles.
Other chapters cover workers’ struggles in the 1970s and 1980s, the Black Women’s Movement in the 1970s and 1980s, queer resistance from the 1950s to the 1990s, the fight for disabled people’s rights, the anti-nuclear movement from the 1940s to the 1990s and the environmental movement, with several different areas of focus.
The final chapter describes the activities of the anti-war movement, starting from the First World War, going into the inter-war years, the campaigning against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, and finally the huge anti-Iraq war protest marches of 15 February 2003; more than 600 towns and cities across the globe took part on that single day.
This book, then, is a powerful reminder of why we need to continue struggling against the forces of capitalism and reaction. Learning about the history of social movements and protest is essential for those of us campaigning for social change today, to inform us of the long history of resistance and to learn the different strategies and tactics that have been tried before and may well work again.