‘Existentialist thought […] is an effort to reconcile the objective and the subjective, the absolute and the relative, the timeless and the historical.’ Simone de Beauvoir

In the aftermath of the Second World War, a group of intellectuals gathered to discuss urgent questions of existence, commitment, racism, colonialism, and feminism. Their ideas would continue to shape those debates throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This anthology gathers the key texts of existentialism, and their major intellectual influences, along with works previously neglected in overviews and anthologies of the movement. Incorporating the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon, alongside selections from Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Martin Heidegger. Edited and introduced by Jonathan Webber, Professor of Philosophy at Cardiff University.

Read a sample here