Garland, David, ‘What is a “history of the present”? On Foucault’s genealogies and their critical preconditions’ Punishment & Society (2014) 16(4)365 – 384 DOI: 10.1177/1462474514541711 Abstract In this article Michel Foucault’s method of writing a “history of the present” is explained, together with its critical objectives and its difference from conventional historiography. Foucault’s shift from …