History Extra Podcast Summary

Episode: What does history teach us about protest?
Date: January 7, 2026
Host: Danny Bird
Guests: Katrina Navicas (Professor of History, University of Hertfordshire) & Timothy Garton Ash (Emeritus Professor, St Antony’s College, Oxford)

Overview

This episode explores the historical dimensions of protest: what defines it, why it matters, and how it has shaped and challenged societies. Host Danny Bird speaks with historians Katrina Navicas and Timothy Garton Ash to investigate the legal, political, and cultural forces behind protest, its impact across centuries, and what current activists can learn from past movements.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Protest: Protest vs. Riot vs. Revolution

(02:37–05:13)

• Katrina Navicas: Protest is a mutable term, historically shaped by law and context. Early definitions, like the 1714 Riot Act in England, distinguished riots (12+ people, violence) from protests or disturbances.
• The modern demonstration emerged in the 19th century, tied to democracy and collective action.
• Timothy Garton Ash: Protests have existed since ancient times (e.g., slave revolts), but modern protest is a nonviolent phenomenon, gaining shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., Gandhi, Civil Rights Movement).
• Quote: “One person’s protest might be another person’s riot… It’s a matter of definition.” — Timothy Garton Ash (03:53)
• The 1989 Velvet Revolution is notable for merging nonviolence and revolution.

2. What Makes Protests Successful?

(05:13–07:50)

• Garton Ash: Protests require favorable external/internal conditions and a clear strategy; they rarely succeed through emotion alone.
  • Quote: “A protest in itself is not enough. You need certain external and internal conditions…and a strategy.” — Timothy Garton Ash (05:27)
• Navicas: Achieving “critical mass” is vital—broad public support and the right historical moment, often when state power is weakened (war, economic crisis).

3. The Unease Around Protest: Democracy’s Heartbeat or Threat?

(07:50–09:37)

• Navicas: Legal rights to assembly/freedom of speech are recent in Britain (Human Rights Act 2000). Throughout history, parliamentary and police powers constantly negotiated what forms of protest are permissible.
• Protest incites anxiety over potential disorder, especially when speech/action may incite violence.
• Garton Ash: No right is unlimited (invokes Popper’s “paradox of tolerance”).
  • Authoritarian regimes fear empowered citizens; the crucial moment is breaking the “barrier of fear.”
  • Memorable anecdote: Friends in Leipzig witnessing a small protest ballooning into a mass demonstration, signifying the power of critical mass (10:42).

4. The Myth of Peaceful Reform in Britain

(11:48–13:58)

• Navicas: The narrative of Britain as evolving through peaceful reform is a Victorian (Whig) myth: actual history includes violent repression (Peterloo Massacre, 1819) and excludes the Irish experience.
• Quote: “All those events happened throughout the 19th and 20th centuries…the struggle all the way through from groups of democratic political societies, through trade unions, unemployed groups, suffragettes…” — Katrina Navicas (12:10)
• Garton Ash: Risk and bodily presence are core to protest; violence from the state can “boomerang” and amplify protest (e.g., student beatings in Czechoslovakia, 1989).

5. Legislation & Policing: How States Respond to Protest

(15:06–19:26)

• Navicas: Most British public order laws emerged not as broad principles but as targeted responses to specific movements (Chartists, trade unions, suffragettes, fascists, miners).
  • Even recent laws often react to individual crises.
• Garton Ash: Authoritarian and democratic states differ greatly. Democracies with piecemeal, crisis-driven legislation (like the UK, lacking a written constitution) risk confusing public order with justified limits on freedom.
  • Since the 1990s, “terrorism” has often justified greater restrictions.
• Navicas: Historical parallels—laws against “terrorism” have long targeted democratic movements, sometimes using seditious charges to suppress dissent (18:09).

6. Spaces of Protest: The Geography & Theater of Dissent

(20:43–24:19)

• Navicas: Protest is about claiming public spaces—streets, squares, and symbolic sites like Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park.
  • Access to key locations is often restricted; e.g., Speaker’s Corner is a compromise, not pure free speech.
  • Police control and restrict routes, locations, and methods (like chaining to fences, popularized by suffragettes).
• Garton Ash: Protests are political theater; public squares are their stages—from Tiananmen Square to Wenceslas Square (Prague, 1989).
  • Quote: “Squares are the great stages of the political theater of protest.” — Timothy Garton Ash (24:12)

7. Remembering Protest: Why Some Movements Become Heroes

(24:58–29:10)

• Navicas: Victorious movements (e.g., suffragettes) are retrospectively celebrated; those unsuccessful are forgotten or painted as disruptive. Winning movements write history to justify their methods.
• Quote: “Most people want to believe…that the British story is progressive and that the winners win and the losers lose.” — Katrina Navicas (27:38)
• Garton Ash: Success is crucial for memorialization. Martyrs occupy a special place—those who pay with their lives create powerful narratives (Jan Palach in Czechoslovakia, 1969).
• Navicas: Political movements curate their own histories, selecting “canon events” that fit their narrative, often glossing over less appealing aspects.

8. Class, Generation, and the Shape of Protest

(30:03–34:43)

• Navicas: Early-19th-century reforms (abolition of slavery, Corn Laws) were advanced by the wealthy; working-class movements faced steeper obstacles (finance, influence). Achievements by those with fewer resources are even more significant.
• Garton Ash: Class-based protest (labor movements) is potent but protest achieves most when crossing classes (e.g., Polish Solidarity in the 1980s).
• Navicas: 20th-century protest evolved from class-based to broad-based, global social movements; from the 1960s onwards, issues like environment or peace unite diverse backgrounds.
• Garton Ash: Generation matters too—1968 and climate change protests are generational movements. Age may rival class as a driver of protest.

9. Lessons for Today’s Protesters: Power, Strategy, and Learning from History

(34:43–37:24)

• Navicas: Breaking the “silos” (class, generation, etc.) and reaching critical mass is essential. Organizing—virtual or physical—retains power when masses unite to overcome fear.
• Garton Ash: Protest history is one of political learning. Key lessons:
  1. Maintain nonviolent discipline.
     • Quote: “Those who start by storming Bastille will end up building Bastille themselves.” — Adam Michnik (via Timothy Garton Ash, 35:39)
  2. Build critical mass and sustain momentum (cascade effects/theater).
  3. Formulate a clear strategy: identify regime weak points and potential defectors.
  4. Protest can still change societies and must learn from the past.

Highlights & Memorable Moments

• Cascade Effect in Authoritarian Regimes: “They reach the next street corner and they see two other people and then the next street corner and suddenly there are 10 people and then 12 and then 200 and then 1000 people.” — Timothy Garton Ash recounting the Leipzig demonstrations, (10:42)
• Martyrdom & Memory: “There wouldn’t be any Jan Palak Square if Czechoslovakia was still in the Soviet bloc.” — Timothy Garton Ash (28:25)
• The Role of Spaces: Katrina Navicas traces the legal and symbolic contest over parks and squares, e.g., Speaker’s Corner as a legislated compromise, not an absolute right (22:00–23:30).

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|------------------------------------------------------| | 02:37 | Defining protest vs. riot vs. revolution | | 05:13 | What makes protests succeed? | | 07:50 | Unease and anxieties: Protest in democracy | | 11:48 | Myths of peaceful British history | | 15:06 | State response: Legislation and policing | | 20:43 | Protest and public space: Why geography matters | | 24:58 | Why some protests become celebrated and others fade | | 30:03 | The role of class and social structure in protest | | 34:43 | Lessons from history for modern protest |

Conclusion

Katrina Navicas and Timothy Garton Ash offer a nuanced, historically rich exploration of protest—its changing forms, successes, failures, and how narratives are shaped. The key lessons for present-day activists: power lies in mass collective action, nonviolence, strategic thinking, and learning from the experiences of the past. Protest remains as vital and transformative as ever—provided it mobilizes broadly, adapts to new challenges, and crafts a compelling story.

Further Reading:

• Contested: A History of Protest and Public Space in England by Katrina Navicas
• A Personal History of Europe by Timothy Garton Ash