Best quotes by David Olusoga on History

Checkout quotes by David Olusoga on History

• ‟ Black history is a series of missing chapters from British history. I'm trying to put those bits back in.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ Our national history cannot be national if, in the near future, one in three young adults feels their stories remain untold, if this country's long global history of empire and interconnections is marginalised and if the historical reality of race is rendered almost invisible.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ History, after all, is a process, not a position, and it is not best written in bronze and marble. It is complex, plastic and ever-changing; all things that heroic statues are not.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ The refusal to accept that the black presence in Britain has a long and deep history is not just a symptom of racism, it is a form of racism. It is part of a rearguard and increasingly unsustainable defence of a fantasy monochrome version of British history.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ I only ever wanted to do history, and make documentaries.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ It was through watching documentaries on the BBC in the late 1980s that I first became interested in art and history.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ I went to school in the 70s and the 80s, and the last thing I expected of my schools back then was that they would be the places in which I would be taught about black history.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ The history of the British empire, the chapter of our national story that would have explained to my classmates why a child born in Nigeria was sat among them, was similarly missing from the curriculum.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ Since I began presenting programmes about black history my life has become a constant impromptu focus group. I am stopped in the street by people who want to talk about the histories those documentaries explore.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ Excusing or downplaying British racism with comparisons to the US is a bad habit with a long history.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ History suggests that the disillusioned and the disaffected do not readily take to the streets nor man the barricades to defend a system that failed to defend them.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ When historians write the last pages of their books, and the producers of history documentaries sit down to edit the final minutes of their programmes, there is often a strong urge to look to the future and emphasise the positive.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ Whether we like it or not, there are moments in history when pessimism is the appropriate response.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ 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 a fantasy version of British history that has contaminated visions of our conceivable future.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ If you want someone to call you a traitor or accuse you of hating Britain, try suggesting that Britain is a normal nation or that our history is remarkable but not exceptional.

  - David Olusoga
  

• ‟ Everyone is happy for the history of slavery to be investigated so long as the investigation examines the parts in which we look good.

  - David Olusoga