Professor David Olusoga

Broadcaster & BAFTA Winning Film Maker
Award Winning Historian
Professor of History

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 writes also for The Guardian, The 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 & British: A Forgotten History and the BAFTA winning Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners. Among his other presenting credits are The World’s War, and The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files, Extra Life, a Short History of Living Longer and the landmark BBC arts series Civilisations.

He is the author of seven books including – Black & British: A Forgotten History, which was awarded both the Longman-History Today Trustees Award and the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize. The World’s War, which won First World War Book of the Year in 2014. Black & British A Short Essential History which was a Waterstones Book Of The Year, Non-Fiction winner at the Quiz Writers’ Choice Awards 2021 and Book of the Year, Children’s non-fiction at the 2021 British Book Awards. The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism, Civilisations: Encounters and the Cult of Progress and A House Through Time.

David is a recipient of both the British Academy’s Presidents Medal and the Norton Medlicott Medal For Services to History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, The Royal Society of Literature, The Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Historical Society. He also sits on the Scott Trust (the body that acts as proprietor of the Guardian Newspaper).

David Olusoga received the 2023 BAFTA Special Award for an outstanding contribution to television.

To book David to speak at your next event please call Prime Performers on 020 3500 3331, complete an online booking form, or email us directly at info@primeperformers.co.uk

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Testimonials

David is such a wonderful speaker and of course very professional (which made all of the practical/tech stuff very easy!). We had great engagement as well with over 100 people on the live stream and about 50 more joining to watch on the big screen in our office. Please do pass on our sincere thanks to David for giving up his time for such a compelling, insightful talk.

Thank you, David, it was a privilege to have you and hear your personal story. It was our most anticipated and well-attended event as part of our Black History Month initiative at UBS and for good reason! We have received some great feedback from viewers, many citing it as one of the most insightful and impactful sessions they have watched at UBS. So many left the session having learnt something new about Black British history and gained an understanding of the depth of ideas behind racism in society. We’d love to have you back again!”

Just some of the feedback I have had: ‘An educational, interesting and thought-provoking start to Black History Month… it’s made me want to educate myself and find out more’, ‘it was really impactful, I’ve seen David Olusoga on a few programmes and he was just as engaging today, it felt special to have someone with recent facts and so much experience of study in this area to explain it all so eloquently’ and ‘one of the greatest speakers we have had in!’… some immediate snippets.