Historians go to great lengths to avoid confronting discontinuity, searching for explanations as to why such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, and the introduction of the euro logically develop from what came before. Moved by the Past radically breaks with this tradition of predating the past, incites us to fully acknowledge the discontinuous nature of discontinuities, and proposes to use the fact that history is propelled by unforeseeable leaps and bounds as a starting point for a truly evolutionary conception of history. Integrating research from a variety of disciplines, Eelco Runia identifies two modes of being "moved by the past": regressive and revolutionary. In the regressive mode, the past may either overwhelm us-as in nostalgia-or provoke us to act out what we believe to be solidly dead. When we are moved by the past in a revolutionary sense, we may be said to embody history: we burn our bridges behind us and create accomplished facts we have no choice but to live up to. In the final thesis of Moved by the Past, humans energize their own evolution by habitually creating situations ("catastrophes" or sublime historical events) that put a premium on mutations. This book therefore illuminates how every now and then we chase ourselves away from what we were and force ourselves to become what we are. Proposing a simple yet radical change in perspective, Runia profoundly reorients how we think and theorize about history.

Runia is one of the only scholars I know who is developing a substantive philosophy of history and doing so in terms that are accessible to academic readers regardless of discipline. His main ideas about presence, metonymy, discontinuity, and adaptation through radical niche construction deserve a wide readership. -- Michael S. Roth, author of Memory, Trauma, and History: Essays on Living with the Past Runia's ability to convey complex ideas about the theory of history in elegant, exciting, and often surprising prose is virtually unmatched. I have the highest regard for him as a writer, as an original thinker, and as a scholar. -- Ethan Kleinberg, executive editor of History and Theory Eelco Runia is a triple-threat thinker: psychologist, historian, and novelist, which makes him ideally suited to the task of exploding a lot of cliches current in philosophy of history. His explications of the ideas of presence, trauma, representation, memory, and discontinuity in our thought about history are original and compelling and, moreover, presented in a style that is at once elegant and engaging. -- Hayden White, author of Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe Just when the philosophy of history seems to have lost its zip, along comes Eelco Runia to energize it. In elegant and exhilarating prose, these brilliant discussions of historical discontinuity, the presence of the past, self-invention, and related topics set the field on a new track. The result is essential reading for anyone interested in what history is and can be. -- Brian Fay, Wesleyan University Moved by the Past runs against the dominant discourse on constructing historical meaning by turning our creative forces from the present to the past. In doing so, Runia lays the fundaments of a new philosophy of history. A fascinating book. -- Jorn Rusen, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Essen

About the Author
Eelco Runia is a novelist and chair of the Centre for Metahistory at Groningen University in the Netherlands. His novels and essayistic work on the making and writing of history address the question of how and why humans habitually disrupt their lives by saddling themselves with accomplished facts of their own making.

Reviews
A beautiful book, thought provoking and a pleasure to read. American Historical Review



Book Information
ISBN 9780231168205
Author Eelco Runia
Format Hardback
Page Count 264
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press