Throughout history, mass demonstrations and protests – both peaceful and violent – have been used to demand and bring about reform. The recent Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions and the resulting shockwaves that continue to reverberate across the Middle East serve as a potent reminder of “people power” in the quest for change.
Protest! is a photographic history covering over 60 years of demonstrations and rebellion. Broad in scope, the powerful images in this book capture diverse and key moments in the history of popular protest, from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the momentous struggle for African-American civil rights in the 1950s and ‘60s, to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the huge anti-war marches held after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In an age of 24-hour television news coverage, it is clear that the still photograph retains the power to capture what Henri Cartier Bresson the “decisive moments of history”. Protest! features the work of some of the world’s best photojournalists, including acclaimed photographers Josef Koudelka, whose iconic photographs of the Prague Spring became symbols of the resistance, Bruno Barbey, who documented the French student riots of 1968, and Alex Majoli, who is currently photographing the ongoing Libyan uprising. Ambitious and unique, the stirring photographs in this compelling book provide a window upon a period of unprecedented political, social and cultural protest.
