David Olusoga

Author/Presenter

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Film, TV & Theatre

Associate Agent : Olivia Martin

Books

Associate Agent : Olivia Martin

Presenting

Associate Agent : Olivia Martin

Film, TV & Theatre

David Olusoga is a British-Nigerian historian, broadcaster and film-maker. His most recent TV series include Empire (BBC 2), Black and British: A Forgotten History (BBC 2), The World’s War (BBC 2), 4 seasons of A House Through Time (BBC 2) and the BAFTA winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners (BBC 2). David is also the author of Black & British: A Forgotten History which was awarded both the Longman-History Today Trustees Award and the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. His other books include The World’s War, which won First World War Book of the Year in 2015, The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism and Civilizations: Encounters and the Cult of Progress. David was also a contributor to the Oxford Companion to Black British History and writes for The Guardian and is a columnist for The Observer and BBC History Magazine. He is also one of the three presenters on the BBC's landmark Arts series Civilizations. In 2020 he held an exclusive interview with former President of the United States, Barack Obama. David's most recent book Black and British: A Short, Essential History won the Children's Illustrated & Non-Fiction book of the year at the 2021 British Book Awards. 

David Olusoga is receiving the 2023 BAFTA Special Award for outstanding contribution to television. 

Television

ProductionCompanyNotes

OUR NHS: A HIDDEN HISTORY

2021

Uplands Television / BBC

David Olusoga meets nurses, doctors and health workers from overseas who have transformed the NHS in spite of hostility and discrimination.

STATUE WARS: ONE SUMMER IN BRISTOL

2021

Uplands Television / BBC

Executive Producer

Follows Bristol’s mayor, Marvin Rees, as he and the city respond to the extraordinary events which followed the toppling of the Colston Statue in the summer of 2020.

A HOUSE THROUGH TIME

2020

BBC

Series 3
4 x 60

THE UNWANTED: THE SECRET WINDRUSH FILES

2019

Uplands Television / BBC

How black immigrants who made Britain their home came face to face with the government's 'hostile environment'. David Olusoga exposes the secret files behind the Windrush scandal.

A HOUSE THROUGH TIME

2019

BBC

Series 2
4 x 60

CIVILISATIONS

2018

BBC

9 part revival of the original series presented by Simon Shama, Mary Beard and David Olusoga
2 x 60

A HOUSE THROUGH TIME

2018

Nutopia/BBC

Series 1
4 x 60

A TIMEWATCH GUIDE

2016 - 2017

BBC

Series 3 and 4
2 x 60

BLACK AND BRITISH

2016

BBC

4 x 60

BRITAIN'S FORGOTTEN SLAVE OWNERS

2015

BBC

2 X 60

THE WORLD'S WAR: FORGOTTEN SOLDIERS OF THE EMPIRE

2014

BBC

2 x 60

Books

Children's

Publication DetailsNotes

BLACK AND BRITISH: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY

2021

Macmillan Children's Books

'Olusoga’s celebrated title is now available in a beautiful and absorbing illustrated format that invites readers from seven and up to pore over its pages. Maps and portrait galleries effortlessly convey how Black and British history have been woven together since the Roman invasion.' ― The Guardian

'It truly sings in picture book form with the history made even more vivid via a trove of old paintings, maps and photographs combined with bold artwork by Melleny Taylor and Jake Alexander.' Imogen Carter, Observer

This beautiful hardback gift book is a stunning visual journey through Black British history for younger readers by award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga and illustrated by Jake Alexander and Melleny Taylor.

The essential starting place for anyone who wants to learn about Black British History. David Olusoga’s thought provoking text charts the forgotten histories of Black people in Britain from Roman times right through to the present day. From Roman Africans guarding Hadrian’s Wall, to an African trumpeter in the court of Henry the Eighth, Black Georgians fighting for the abolition of slavery, Black soldiers fighting for Britain in the First World War, Windrush and right up today. These are the stories that brought us all together in this country.

BLACK AND BRITISH: A SHORT, ESSENTIAL HISTORY

2020

Macmillan Children's Books

Winner of the 2021 Children's Illustrated & Non-Fiction book of the year, 'Black and British: A Short, Essential History,' is an essential introduction to Black British history for readers of 12 years old and up.

Non-Fiction

Publication DetailsNotes
2018

Profile

Companion to the major new BBC documentary series CIVILISATIONS, presented by Mary Beard, David Olusoga and Simon Schama.

In Civilisations, David Olusoga travels the world to piece together the shared histories that link nations. In Part One, First Contact, we discover what happened to art in the great Age of Discovery, when civilisations encountered each other for the first time. Although undoubtedly a period of conquest and destruction, it was also one of mutual curiosity, global trade and the exchange of ideas. In Part Two, The Cult of Progress, we see how the Industrial Revolution transformed the world, impacting every corner, and every civilisation, from the cotton mills of the Midlands through Napoleon's conquest of Egypt to the decimation of both Native American and Maori populations and the advent of photography in Paris in 1839.

BLACK AND BRITISH: A FORGOTTEN HISTORY

2016

Macmillan

In Black and British, award-winning historian and broadcaster David Olusoga offers readers a rich and revealing exploration of the extraordinarily long relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Drawing on new genetic and genealogical research, original records, expert testimony and contemporary interviews, Black and British reaches back to Roman Britain, the medieval imagination and Shakespeare's Othello.

THE WORLD'S WAR

2014

Head of Zeus

In a sweeping narrative, David Olusoga describes how Europe's Great War became the World's War - a multi-racial, multi-national struggle, fought in Africa and Asia as well as in Europe, which pulled in men and resources from across the globe.

2010

Faber

Using shocking new archival evidence, The Kaiser's Holocaust is the definitive account of a genocide that was deliberately concealed for a century - a history that modern Germany has not yet come to terms with. Today, as the graves of the victims are uncovered in the Namibian deserts, the re-emergence of the Kaiser's holocaust poses a profound challenge to the notion that Nazi violence was an aberration in European history.

Presenting