“We’re part of a longer story”: David Olusoga on history, empathy and legacy
Evening Standard · The Standard ·
The BAFTA-winning historian reveals the people and moments that shaped who he is today, and why our wills are a reflection of our values
David Olusoga wants us to know that we all leave a mark on the world. As one of the UK’s best-known historians, he’s spent much of his career telling the stories of those overlooked in history, whether that’s the black and Asian troops who fought in World War One or the residents of a Victorian terrace house in Liverpool. “History is about our own ancestors, no matter how humble their lives,” he says. “It’s about our own houses, not just palaces.”
Throughout his three-decade career as an academic, broadcaster and writer, the common thread in his work is the idea that history happens to all of us. “At the heart of what I do are histories about ordinary people, and they can be ordinary people that you can find living in a house in Edinburgh, or ordinary people whose names appear on a register of enslaved people in the Caribbean,” he says.
Family, education and a passion for history
Read the full story at Evening Standard · All coverage of this story