We nonchalantly expect that next year’s smartphone will be faster and better than this year’s, yet we struggle to imagine that society and our lives could progress at anything like the pace at which technology advances and we meekly accept it when things go backwards. David Olusoga Read Quote
In the Britain of 2019, around a third of a million of our fellow citizens are homeless. David Olusoga Read Quote
The nation of 2019, exponentially wealthier, appears to have a fraction of its former self-belief and little faith in its capacity to solve the latest in a long line of housing crises that stretch back to the 18th century. David Olusoga Read Quote
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 their room for manoeuvre was expanded by the same disillusionment that helped them into office. David Olusoga Read Quote
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 Read Quote
Even in London, at the centre of the wealthiest region in northern Europe, in so many ways insulated from the financial realities faced by the rest of the country, the facts of austerity are becoming harder to ignore. David Olusoga Read Quote
When black Britons draw parallels between their experiences and those of African Americans, they are not suggesting that those experiences are identical. David Olusoga Read Quote
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 Read Quote
Very occasionally, I wish I was French. The fantasy usually materialises just after a holiday, when I dream of living by the warmth of the Mediterranean, or after a trip to Paris during which I indulge fantasies of being a Left Bank cafe-bohemian. David Olusoga Read Quote
Historians are a long way from being key workers. The best place for them is at home, reading their books and keeping out of the way. David Olusoga Read Quote
