Digitalizing the Global Text

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The present book in both its topic and its transnational makeup has come at a very particular moment. A few short years ago, globalism seemed to be both a known and an inexorable phenomenon. With the end of the Cold War, the opening of the Chinese economy, and the ascendancy of digital technology, the prospect of a unified flow of goods and services, of people and ideas seemed unstoppable (Moraru). Political theorists such as Francis Fukuyama proclaimed "the end of history." Yes, there were pockets of resistance and reaction, but these, we were told, would be swept away in a relentless tide of free markets and global integration that would bring Hollywood, digital finance, and fast food to all. Religious fundamentalism, revanchist forms of nationalism, attachments to traditional sexual identities would melt away before the forces of what were variously termed "modernity, " "postmodernity, " and Empire. A kind of relentless, technocratic rationality would sweep all in its wake, bringing a neoliberal utopia of free markets, free speech, and ever-increasing productivity. Were there, in the words of a seventies classic, "limits to growth" (Meadows et al.)? If so, they would be either transcended or accommodated by the same forces that threatened their breach. Climate change would be managed through a combination of technological innovation and agreed-upon regulation. Population control would be achieved by education, prosperity, and women entering the workforce"--