Most people tend to think of themselves primarily as individuals, as members of a family or community, or as citizens of a state. Most of us, however, also belong to larger collectives known as civilizations (Arlt and Daviau 2009; Holton and Nasson 2009). Throughout much of human history, it is unlikely that many people have actually thought in terms of civilizational identity, civilizational loyalty or civilizational belonging; our daily circumstances simply do not promote such thinking, we tend to move in far smaller circles and operate on a much lower level of affiliation. Moreover, it would be a relatively rare circumstance in which people have thought of their own personal security and wellbeing in relation to or as being immediately dependent upon the security and welfare of the civilization (or civilizations) to which they might belong (Bowden 2010). But that is not to suggest that such circumstances do not eventuate from time to time, the effects of climate change being a good case in point (Fagan 2004, 2008).nowhere more so than in politics and international affairs. This revival has seen the terms interpreted and applied in a variety of manners and different contexts. In too many cases this endeavour has been less than effective because of an oversimplification of what the terms mean and what they have historically represented. In part in response to this revival but also in part as an explanatory tool itself, this article gives a comprehensive overview of the Enlightenment origins and meanings of the term civilisation(s). A central concern is the oft-neglected normative component of the ideal of civilisation and the implications it carriesnowhere more so than in politics and international affairs. This revival has seen the terms interpreted and applied in a variety of manners and different contexts. In too many cases this endeavour has been less than effective because of an oversimplification of what the terms mean and what they have historically represented. In part in response to this revival but also in part as an explanatory tool itself, this article gives a comprehensive overview of the Enlightenment origins and meanings of the term civilisation(s). A central concern is the oft-neglected normative component of the ideal of civilisation and the implications it carries. In turn, the study of civilization has been the traditional focus of history, as an academic discipline, since the late nineteenth century. As academic fields became specialized over the course of the 1800s CE, history identified itself as the study of the past based on written artifacts. A sister field, archeology, developed as the study of the past based on non-written artifacts (such as the remains of bodies in grave sites, surviving buildings, and tools). Thus, for practical reasons, the subject of “history” as a field of study begins with the invention of writing, something that began with the earliest civilization itself, that of the Fertile Crescent (described below). That being noted, history and archeology remain closely intertwined, especially since so few written records remain from the remote past that most historians of the ancient world also perform archeological research, and all archeologists are also at least conversant with the relevant histories of their areas of study.