The word ‘civilization’—in the singular but also in the plural—has become common of late in the mouths of politicians and in the writings of international relations academics. Samuel Huntington stirred up a storm in political studies by his vision of the future world as a ‘clash’ of civilizations (in the plural);Samuel P. Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72:3, 1993; the article was expanded into a book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996). and the war in Yugoslavia generated an increased frequency in political rhetoric of the word ‘civilization’ (in the singular). Indeed, as I shall argue later, conflict in the Balkans revealed more clearly than before the meaning of civilizations and of civilization (in both plural and singular) for our time.