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Download the app today. Hi everybody from Wundere welcome to another episode of Tides of History. I'm Patrick

Weymann. Thanks so much for joining me.

As the years go on and I delve into different eras and different parts of the world,

I keep coming back to a fundamental question.

History is full of people doing terrible things to one another, ranging from the everyday cruelties of social oppression to slavery, to conquest of full-blown genocide.

So why do ordinary people agree to participate in those actions?

What makes a seemingly run-of-the-mill individual, someone with a family and friends, who laughs

at jokes and cares for their children, drag other children into the holds of a slave ship or slaughter a village of non-combatants.

To help work through my thoughts on this, I wrote an essay for my newsletter, which you can find at

Patrick Wyman.

Substat.com.

It's entitled Ordinary People Do Terrible Things, and it takes a long-term historical perspective

on the issue.

Using examples from ancient Syria to the Second World War, I talk about social pressure, how heinous acts can become normalized, and the entirely ordinary people who take part in those actions.

To help work through these questions further I had a long chat with

the historian and podcaster Daniela Ballelli who hosts history on fire and

often deals with the darker side of history. This is a little different than my usual interviews, but I think you'll really enjoy it. How do I tell them? How do I tell them? How do I be the bills? How do I pay the bills?

I know what goes through your head when you're living with cancer. The questions, the fears, the need to know.

How do I know?

Because I'm living with cancer too.

That's why I joined the Macmillan online community.

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