This Afterword examines the complex and entangled relationship between modernity and translation, challenging the notion of modernity as a linear trajectory of progress and rupture. Blumczynski critiques the idea that societies experience modernity as a fundamental break from the past, emphasizing instead its recurrent self-definition as “new” in contrast to what came before. Drawing on Latour’s concepts of translation as hybridization and purification as separation, he argues that modernity’s construction has always been shaped by a dynamic interplay between these forces. Within translation studies, Blumczynski contests the dominant expansion narrative, which frames translation as having evolved from a narrow linguistic concept to a broader socio-cultural phenomenon. Instead, he demonstrates that translation was historically understood in a multimodal sense, encompassing knowledge transmission, power structures, and material culture, and that its contemporary linguistic bias is a historical anomaly. This reflection aligns with the volume’s three-part structure—modernity as translation, translation of modernity, and modernity in translation—showing how translation actively shapes and disrupts modernity itself. Rather than offering a singular vision, Blumczynski advocates for plural, non-linear approaches to both translation and modernity, foregrounding the temporal tensions that define their relationship and highlighting the necessity of engaging with both past and future in understanding modernity’s ongoing transformations.