Introduction

When attempting to delegitimise one's political opponents' actions it has become standard practice to refer to them as barbaric and medieval. Most recently such political labelling was widespread in the characterisation of the Wars of Yugoslav Succession as barbarism grounded in ‘ancient hatreds’ (Kaplan 1993) and depictions of the Taliban as ‘medieval vandals’ whose actions represent ‘a regression into medieval barbarism’ (Singh 2001). Such descriptions are rooted in the almost universal views that, not only is the modern age morally superior to the medieval times, but also, that we live in a substantially less violent world than our medieval counterparts. Although it is true that modernity in general dispenses with macabre displays of torture and public mutilations, this does not mean that in the modern era violent action is on the decrease. On the contrary, with modernity violence and warfare are proliferating at unprecedented levels. The total tally of twentieth century deaths caused by organised violence constitutes nearly 75 per cent of all war deaths for the last 5,000 years (Eckhardt 1992: 273). In other words, in 100 years modern human beings have managed to kill twenty-two times more people than our predecessors were able to do in 4,900 years. In comparison to this staggering figure the human casualties for the thousand years of the medieval period (500–1500) amount to only 1.6 per cent of all war deaths (Eckhardt 1992: 273). Hence the question is: How and why are popular perceptions so obviously distorted?