Who are the key people whose lives are helping to define the age that we are now living through? How do their stories resonate our own? What are the forces that drive and confine their impacts on the directions laid down in the first decades of the twenty-first century? These are similar questions to those posed two hundred years ago by the English essayist William Hazlitt. I follow his lead, borrowing his title. The present volume comprises thirty-one essays grouped into seven thematic areas that I suggest will help us navigate through the uncertain landscape of the future. There are two additional essays that top and tail the collection in which I seek to summarise Hazlitt's concerns in his age and focus my concerns in our age.

Mike Berry is a retired businessman with extensive experience in manufacturing, retailing, event management and sports management. He has a love of travelling, football and enjoys writing. He has been a happily married man for over 50 years and has two children and four grandchildren.He is the son of the book's central character and the book is based on numerous conversations, recordings and discussions with his Dad over his lifetime and particularly in his later years.Mike Berry started writing during the Pandemic and has penned more than one hundred poems on a variety of subjects which he also plans to publish.