The Denial of Death

Winner of the 1974 Pulitzer Prize and the culmination of Ernest Becker s life s work, The Denial of Death is one of the twentieth-century s great works. In it Ernest Becker s passionately seeks to understand the basis of human existence. Addressing the fundamental fact of existence as man s refusal to acknowledge his own mortality, Becker sheds new light on humanity and the meaning of life itself. Becker views human civilisation and achievement as an attempt to transcend a sense of mortality as mankind seeks heroic acts (a sense of heroism is the central fact of human nature) to become part of something eternal; even though the physical body will die one day life can still have meaning and a greater significance. In the modern world much conflict between religions, nations and ideologies are the result of contradictory immortality projects (Becker s term for an attempt to create something eternal) but Becker looks for new and more convincing immortality projects that can restore the heroic sense, as well as bringing about a better world. Drawing together an astounding array of fields, from psychology and philosophy to religion and the human sciences Ernest Becker s work has had a lasting cultural impact.