21st Century Philosophy uses selected popular texts, all written in the last decade, as a window through which to examine contemporary social and cultural issues. What are the long-term prospects for 'New Atheism'? On balance, is the United States chiefly a force for good, or is it bent on hegemony? Is the optimism of the Enlightenment a historical curiosity, or can it be revived? To what extent can quality fiction enlarge the modern imagination, and how far are we stuck in a rut of banality? What is the connection between academic ideals and the proliferation of kitsch? What light can Rousseau or Russell, Hume or Heidegger, Schopenhauer or Sartre shed on these sorts of questions - if any? The book consists of eight essays that can be read in any order, with a combined length of over 80,000 words.

James Ward is the author of A New Theory of Justice and Other Essays (2013) and Firearms & the Fortress (2025). His 1998 Master's dissertation explored the relation between the eternal and the temporal in Søren Kierkegaard's 'authorship', while his 2001 doctoral thesis focused on Karl Marx's critique of Max Stirner in The German Ideology. Whilst working towards his MA, he won joint first prize (along with Martha Nussbaum and Lars Gårding) in a philosophical dialogues competition organised by the Humanities Research Centre at Oxford University and the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, on the topic of Kierkegaard's concept of 'Repetition'. The piece was subsequently performed in Stockholm before an invited audience, and published in Comparative Criticism (vol. 20, Cambridge University Press, 1998).