The 19th Century Philosophical Divide

Anglo-American ("analytic") philosophy and Continental Philosophy 

As most western countries participated in early 19th century Romanticism, a divide into two major philosophical traditions occurred in which philosophers from one tradition would show little interest in the other tradition's work.

The Anglo-American tradition, which consists largely (but not wholly) of philosophers of Great Britain, the United States, and other English-speaking countries, continued in the tradition of David Hume's "scientific" philosophy.  They did not engage in developing large metaphysical systems as Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Immanuel Kant had created.  The further development of Jeremy Bentham's utilitarian ethics was carried out by James Mill and his son, John Stuart Mill, an Henry Sidjwick in the 19th century and utilitarianism was further developed up to the present.   

In the 1870s, some American philosophers beginning with Charles Sanders Pierce, developed the only American school of philosophy, Pragmatism.  By the 20th century, the "analytic" school of philosophy became the domain of English speaking philosophers (although some important continental philosophers including, Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Karl Popper).  Underlying their approach was a focus on logic and language.  Their domains included philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, ethics (mostly utilitarianism), philosophy of law, and a small amount of political philosophy.

The Continental tradition, composed of mostly German and French philosophers, is comprised of multiple schools or movements.  The earliest is German idealism that followed from the transcendental philosophy of Immanual Kant and found its most important voice in George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.  The British also had an idealist school.

Socialist and Communist philosophies followed, most notably the theories of Karl Marx.  Marxist "critical theory," enhanced by the thought of other thinkers such as Sigmund Freud and sociologist Max Weber would be a dominant movement in the 20th century as practiced by members of the Frankfurt school.  

Existentialism, both religious (e.g. Søren Kierkegaard) and atheistic (e.g. Jean-Paul Sartre),proposed that each individual—not society or religion—is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and living it passionately and sincerely, or "authentically" in the face of angst.  

Structuralism was another 20th century movement.  It tried to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel.  Alternatively,  structuralism is "the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations."  Its main proponents were Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan.   

Finally, post-Structuralist or Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical direction which is skeptical of certain foundational assumptions of Western philosophy, of the 18th-century Enlightenment, and of philosophy in general.  Frederick Nietzsche is seen as a forerunner of Postmodernism.  One example of post-modern philosophy is Jacques Derrida's deconstruction which challenges the relationship between text and meaning.