As a way of improvising on the study of civilizations in world politics, the volume focuses on those social and political practices through which  notions of civilizational identity are reproduced in a variety of contexts ranging from the global credit regime to theological debates about modernity to the 'war on terrorism'. The contributors to the volume explore the ways in which practices of civilizational identity give rise to the effect of a solid object called a 'civilization,' even though this object is itself nothing more than an ensemble of social practices.