Description
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