Counter-History of the Present

Gabriel Rockhill

In Counter-History of the Present Gabriel Rockhill contests, dismantles, and displaces one of the most widespread understandings of the contemporary world: that we are all living in a democratized and globalized era intimately connected by a single, overarching economic and technological network. Noting how such a narrative fails to account for the experiences of the billions of people who lack economic security, digital access, and real political power, Rockhill interrogates the ways in which this grand narrative has emerged in the same historical, economic, and cultural context as the fervid expansion of neoliberalism. He also critiques the concurrent valorization of democracy, which is often used to justify U.S. military interventions on the behalf of capital. Developing an alternative account of the current conjuncture that acknowledges the plurality of lived experiences around the globe and in different social strata, he shifts the foundations upon which debates about the contemporary world can be staged. Rockhill's counter-history thereby offers a new grammar for historical narratives, creating space for the articulation of futures no longer engulfed in the perpetuation of the present.

Acknowledgments  xi Introduction. Toward a Counter-History of the Present  1 1. A Specter Is Haunting Globalization  11 2. Are We Really Living in a Technological Era?  33 3. What Is the Use of Democracy? Urgency of an Inappropriate Question  51 Afterword. Taking Charge of the Meanings and Direction of History  103 Notes  109 Bibliography  133 Index  143