A collection of essays written over the years by Frederick Sontag, American Life addresses various ethical, philosophical, and religious topics in American history and explores how these experiences can be used to face problems in the future.

Can we 21st century pioneers match the challenge that our wanderings in a vast spiritual desert will bring us to encounter, still never giving up our hope, and yet continually find our courage renewed? Can we rediscover trust in our now more divided lands, as some have managed to do in their past trials and tribulations? In 2001: A Spiritual Odyssey Frederick Sontag argues that we cannot understand the causes and the directions of our 21st century spiritual odyssey without seeing the forces which attract and drive the human spirit. Our goal? To see what new-born novelties may be moving us to our 2001 spiritual odyssey, and what attractions and distractions may be as old to us as our evolution's history.

This book attempts to reconcile the analytic philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein with those issues that consumed his personal life and which lay outside the confines of analytic philosophy: his "religious disposition," his ascetic lifestyle, and his concern with the mystical. Sontag reveals the influence of the mystical on Wittgenstein's life and philosophy, his respect for Augustine, Kierkegaard, and William James, and the profound effect of Tolstoy's religious writings on the development of his philosophy.