Work

The Denial of Death

Overview

The Denial of Death is a 1973 book by American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker which discusses the psychological and philosophical implications of how people and cultures have reacted to the concept of death. The author argues most human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death.

It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1974, two months after the author's death. It is the main work responsible for the development of terror management theory, which provides empirical support for Becker's ideas.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Philosophers who discussed The Denial of Death

• Søren Kierkegaard

Related ideas

• Nationalism
• Religion
• Racism
• Sigmund Freud
• Søren Kierkegaard
• Schizophrenia
• Ernest Becker
• Age of Enlightenment
• Causa sui
• Otto Rank
• Death
• Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
• Death anxiety
• Defence mechanism

Place in the tradition

Part of Philosophical pessimism.

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