Eelco Runia is a psychologist and historian. Some of his work has been published in the literary magazine De Gids. In 1996 his book De pathologie van de veldslag (The Pathology of Battle) was nominated for the Golden Owl Award. In that book, Runia researched how Tolstoy treated the reality of the Napoleonic wars in his novel War and Peace and what that says about his and our experience of history.
(Meulenhoff Boekerij, 1999, 240 pagina's)
Some historical events are beyond any powers of imagination. The massive destruction of the Jews during World War Two was such an event. Historian Eelco Runia wonders how society nevertheless succeeds in moving on from such catastrophes and in incorporating them in its own history. In Waterloo Verdun Auschwitz he examines the experience of World War I and the French Revolution as well as the Final Solution (Endlösung).
