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 passionately seeks to understand the basis of human existence. Taking 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. Mankind seeks heroic acts 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' but Becker sees these as false and looks for alternative immortality projects that can restore the heroic sense, as well as bringing about a better world.