The New Dark Age by Nigel Biggar

The New Dark Age by Nigel Biggar

In an increasingly polarized age, culture wars are everywhere. They are often dismissed as superficial or confected disagreements designed to distract us from more important issues. Is this true, or are they actually more fundamental than that?

In this thoughtful and passionate intervention, renowned theologian and moral philosopher Nigel Biggar argues that the 'culture wars' are in fact political and moral debates that cut to the very quick of some of the most substantial questions of our time, ranging from the welfare of children to the way we conceive and manage ethnic and cultural differences in diverse societies. The fact that these debates are so often characterized by bad faith, lack of scruple and mindless abuse exposes the rot at the heart of the intellectual culture of the West, most especially in universities. The authoritarian suppression and the smearing of isolated dissidents, combined with the intimidation of a conflict-averse majority of bystanders, are alarming symptoms of a dangerous reality: our hard-won and fragile liberal culture of rational truth-seeking and good faith civility is under serious threat. A new dark age looms.

Mixing first-hand experience with broad ethical, political and cultural reflection, this is a powerful and erudite polemic from one of our most respected thinkers. No one who cares about the future of Western civilization can afford to miss it.

Also available as an audiobook.

Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford, where he led the 'Ethics and Empire' research project. 'One of the leading living Western ethicists', according to the New Statesman, he was named one of Prospect magazine's Top Thinkers of 2024 and appointed Commander of the British Empire 'for services to higher education' in 2021. In 2025, he entered the House of Lords as a Conservative peer. A regular speaker and columnist throughout the English-speaking world, he is author of the bestselling Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023) and Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Imaginary Guilt (2025).