Humans are pattern-seeking animals, consciously and subconsciously imposing designs and theories on to past events. We do this in both our private lives and when looking at history. David Olusoga Read Quote
Many historians will tell you that there are no laws of history and no great cycles that govern human events. History often appears more random than rhythmic. But if not patterns or cycles, there are certainly coincidences and some are so marked that they are hard not to notice. David Olusoga Read Quote
1819 was a year of hunger, mass unemployment, political repression and murderous, state-sanctioned violence. David Olusoga Read Quote
Ultimately, the naming of buildings is not a mechanism by which history is kept alive. It is a mechanism by which the rich and the powerful are honoured. David Olusoga Read Quote
After 150 years, Bristol’s prime music venue is to finally change its name and thereby cut its link to the infamous slave trader Edward Colston. David Olusoga Read Quote
What we’re seeing is a backlash against any attempt, whether from the world of scholarship or popular culture, to paint non-white people back into the British past. Those of us who write about this history have long been familiar with this. David Olusoga Read Quote
At its height, Rome’s empire stretched right along the coast of north Africa and sub-Saharan Africans passed to and fro across its porous southern border. David Olusoga Read Quote
Historians spend their days engaged in the literally endless task of reshaping and expanding our view of the past, while statues are fixed and inflexible. David Olusoga Read Quote
At 18, I stood in the Louvre in front of the paintings that TV had first shown me. David Olusoga Read Quote
