Few thinkers have had such a great influence on thinking about society as Norbert Elias. What is the intellectual significance of the founder of civilisation theory today, thirty-five years after his death? Snot, saliva, toilet habits and table manners, they formed the research field of Norbert Elias. By zooming in on how everyday, banal rituals and forms of interaction became increasingly strict over the centuries, Elias cast a new light on the centuries-long development of civilisation, especially in Europe. He saw a close connection between processes of state formation and changes in human experience and behaviour. In his magnum opus The Civilisation Process, Elias argues how we became increasingly sensitive to dirt, nudity and violence. Elias analysed how people began to regulate themselves from the Middle Ages onwards and to mirror the behavioural norms of the court elite. In this way, Elias linked the intimate and personal to a comprehensive political and social meta-analysis. In this way, Elias became one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century. Particularly in the Netherlands, where Elias spent his last years, his thinking gained a large following. We discuss the relevance of Elias' work today. Can Elias' thinking help to explain populist tendencies in the Western world? And how problematic is his Eurocentric view of civilisation? Have we really become more sensitive to violence, as Elias argued, or is violence an inherent part of Western modernity? Norbert Elias was born in 1897 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). In 1933, Elias, who was Jewish, fled first to France and later to the United Kingdom. In 1939, he published his best-known and most influential work On Civilisation Process. He spent the last years of his life in Amsterdam. Elias has had a great influence on Dutch sociologists such as Joop Goudsblom and Abram de Swaan. Elias died in 1990.