David Olusoga

“The loss of the American colonies was the first time the process of British empire building had been put significantly into reverse, and became the starting point for a nostalgic yearning for lost colonies - and the wealth and global influence that came with them - that has become part of our national psyche.”

“As one of the very few black historians who, from time to time, appears on TV, my daily life is a constant, open-air focus group.”

“The primitive fight-or-flight regions of our mammalian brains react to immediate danger. We instinctively run from an avalanche but the gradual retreat of a glacier, the portent of the far greater danger of rising temperatures and rising oceans, just doesn't get through to us in the same way.”

“The most extreme among the Brexiters are convinced they can ride the chaos and deploy the 'shock doctrine' to remake the nation in their ideological image.”

“If you want someone to call you a traitor or accuse you of hating Britain, try suggesting that Britain is a normal nation or that our history is remarkable but not exceptional.”

“When black Britons draw parallels between their experiences and those of African Americans, they are not suggesting that those experiences are identical.”

“What needs to be debated is whether IQ tests, as currently designed, are fit for purpose, and capable of measuring the changing nature of intelligence in the 21st century among generations brought up with digital technology and different learning habits.”

“Britain and Churchill fought not solely in the name of liberty and democracy, but also with the intention of maintaining the empire, defending vital interests and remaining a great power.”

“The British deployed the men of their Indian army on the European battlefield from October 1914; the decision being made within days of the outbreak of hostilities.”

“It was through watching documentaries on the BBC in the late 1980s that I first became interested in art and history.”

“Black people are expected to be passive citizens, good immigrants, mute and grateful.”

“I don't have any personal memories of the broadcast of 'Civilisation'. I was born the year afterwards. But the many personal stories I have heard from the people it touched do resonate as I had my own television-induced epiphany.”

“Britain in the 19th century was two things simultaneously; the hub of the largest empire on earth and the greatest manufacturing and trading nation the world had ever seen. Yet the formal empire and the trading empire were not the same thing.”

“But Johnson's Churchill-lite shtick and Theresa May's even less convincing Iron Lady routine are only even vaguely viable because they tap into a fantasy version of British history that has contaminated visions of our conceivable future.”

“The easiest way to make television authentic is to make it really authentic.”

“Black history is a series of missing chapters from British history. I'm trying to put those bits back in.”

“When the banks crashed the global economy in 2007-08, it was they who received a bailout while the rest of us got austerity.”

“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.”

“Britain today is not revolutionary France. There are no grades of citizenship. An immigrant who has just shaken hands at the end of their citizenship ceremony is as British as a member of the oldest family in the land.”

“History, after all, is a process, not a position, and it is not best written in bronze and marble. It is complex, plastic and ever-changing; all things that heroic statues are not.”