Excusing or downplaying British racism with comparisons to the US is a bad habit with a long history. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
As a historian, I always think you know what a moment was 20 years later. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Whether we like it or not, there are moments in history when pessimism is the appropriate response. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
History, after all, is a process, not a position, and it is not best written in bronze and marble. It is complex,… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
The history of the British empire, the chapter of our national story that would have explained to my classmates why a child… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
History suggests that the disillusioned and the disaffected do not readily take to the streets nor man the barricades to defend a… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Ultimately, the naming of buildings is not a mechanism by which history is kept alive. It is a mechanism by which the… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Most people involved in the delivery of history, in universities, publishing, museums and the heritage industry, are aware that we have a… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Humans are pattern-seeking animals, consciously and subconsciously imposing designs and theories on to past events. We do this in both our private… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
If you want someone to call you a traitor or accuse you of hating Britain, try suggesting that Britain is a normal… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
My view as a historian is that the empire was an extractive, exploitative, racist and violent institution and that the history of… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Our national history cannot be national if, in the near future, one in three young adults feels their stories remain untold, if… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Many historians will tell you that there are no laws of history and no great cycles that govern human events. History often… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
But Johnson's Churchill-lite shtick and Theresa May's even less convincing Iron Lady routine are only even vaguely viable because they tap into… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
The refusal to accept that the black presence in Britain has a long and deep history is not just a symptom of… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
The great untruth around which everything pivots is the idea that the defenders of these statues are the defenders of history and… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
When historians write the last pages of their books, and the producers of history documentaries sit down to edit the final minutes… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
A hard Brexit would be so damaging to the true interests of the UK that what might follow - if we are… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Since I began presenting programmes about black history my life has become a constant impromptu focus group. I am stopped in the… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Historians spend their days engaged in the literally endless task of reshaping and expanding our view of the past, while statues are… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
As one of the very few black historians who, from time to time, appears on TV, my daily life is a constant,… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
I went to school in the 70s and the 80s, and the last thing I expected of my schools back then was… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Historians are a long way from being key workers. The best place for them is at home, reading their books and keeping… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Black history is a series of missing chapters from British history. I'm trying to put those bits back in. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
It was through watching documentaries on the BBC in the late 1980s that I first became interested in art and history. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Everyone is happy for the history of slavery to be investigated so long as the investigation examines the parts in which we… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
It is of course perfectly possible for a university, or any institution, to carry out a rigorous investigation into the historical origins… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
What we're seeing is a backlash against any attempt, whether from the world of scholarship or popular culture, to paint non-white people… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
I was born in Africa but brought up in the north-east of England. Most of my childhood was spent living on a council estate… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Donald Trump did not cause America's democratic crisis of faith, he rode to power on it. Once in control, he and other populists discovered… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Talking about class and identity can be as divisive as talking about race and racism. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Britain in the 19th century was two things simultaneously; the hub of the largest empire on earth and the greatest manufacturing and trading nation… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
1819 was a year of hunger, mass unemployment, political repression and murderous, state-sanctioned violence. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Whether we like it or not, there are moments in history when pessimism is the appropriate response. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
In the case of the second world war the distorting factor is not poetry but our seemingly insatiable need to view the war through… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
I disagreed with my teachers on pretty much everything, including what grades I was going to get at A-level. I was sure I'd pass,… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
Democratically elected governments meekly requesting giant corporations to pay pitifully low levels of tax on their enormous profits is not a good look. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
At 18, I stood in the Louvre in front of the paintings that TV had first shown me. — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
I have met other black and mixed-race people who were victims of racism, often far worse than anything I experienced, and who have taken… — David Olusoga Copy Share Image
