The Denial of Death [Paperback]

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize,The Denial of Deathexplores how people and cultures around the world have reacted to the concept of death from celebrated cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life’s work,The Denial of Deathis Ernest Becker’s brilliant and impassioned answer to the “why” of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie—man’s refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates decades after its writing.After receiving a PhD in cultural anthropology from Syracuse University, Dr. Ernest Becker (1924–1974) taught at the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State College, and Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is survived by his wife, Marie, and a foundation that bears his name—The Ernest Becker Foundation.The Denial of Death

Foreword

The first words Ernest Becker said to me when I walked into his hospital room were: “You are catching me in extremis. This is a test of everything I’ve written about death. And I’ve got a chance to show how one dies, the attitude one takes. Whether one does it in a dignified, manly way; what kinds of thoughts one surrounds it with; how one accepts his death.”

When The Denial of Death arrived at Psychology Today in late 1973 and was placed on my desk for consideration it took me less than an hour to decide that I wanted to interview Ernest Becker. On December 6th, I called his home in Vancouver to see if he would do a conversation for the magazine. His wife, Marie, told me he had just been taken to lcR