Welcome to Humane History. Get ready for Aristotle, Captain Kirk, and Xerxes. This episode is called “The Conscience of a King.”

Two people were able to put what life was like in the Soviet Union in the 1930s into words, maybe at its darkest time. But what is really beautiful about it is that these people were still able to effectively describe what this time was like even though they had to endure it. This episode is called “Sofia & Konstantin.”

The approach to history that tries to memorize names and dates and numbers has the tendency to rob people of sympathy that might help you understand backgrounds, attitudes, and motivations way better than memorizing numbers. It would seem like time periods, cultures, inventions, and geography would make up too many differences. But people are people. Although there are differences between you and a German from the thirties or a Roman auxiliary soldier, there are also so many things you have in common just because of the fact that you’re human. So that’s what this is. I have a few stories that I think would be better told with an approach that considers the human side of history.