David Olusoga
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David Olusoga is Patron of Bristol Ideas.
David Olusoga is a British-Nigerian historian, author, presenter and BAFTA winning film-maker. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester and a columnist for The Observer. He also writes for the Guardian, New Statesman, The Voice and BBC History Magazine. He presents the long-running BBC history series A House Through Time and wrote and presented the award-winning series Black and British: A Forgotten History and Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. His other presenting credits include The World’s War and The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files. He was also one of the presenters on the BBC landmark arts series Civilizations alongside Simon Schama and Mary Beard. He is the Creative Director of Uplands Television Limited, a Bristol-based independent production company, through which he develops and exec-produces history and arts projects. His books include: Black and British: A Forgotten History; Black and British: An Illustrated History; A House Through Time (with Melanie Backe-Hansen); The Cult of Progress; The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society and sits on the Scott Trust.
David has participated in many Bristol Ideas projects and discussions over the years, on topics as wide-ranging as poetry and utopia, failed revolutions and the lessons of history, the revolutions of art in television, how cities address contested history and his popular BBC TV series A House Through Time. He has interviewed writers, artists and academics including Akala, Afua Hirsch, Gary Younge and Claudia Rankine as part of Festival of Ideas.
Listen
This playlist contains all of David’s events for which we have audio recordings.
Watch
David talks about his new series of A House Through Time which looks at 10 Guinea Street, Bristol. In a wide-ranging conversation, he discusses the history of the house and the people who lived there; slavery and Bristol; Bristol’s radical history; why cities are important to him; the future of cities; and the invaluable work of archivists and archives.
Read
In 2019 David contributed a personal essay our publication, Homes for Heroes 100: Council House Memories, writing about growing up on a council estate in Gateshead. Read it here.
