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The cover of The Denial of Death

The Denial of Death

Ernest Becker, 1973

Becker argues that our fear of death drives heroism, culture and neurosis alike, and asks how anyone can live honestly once the comforting illusions fall away.

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12 parts, about 24 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Argues that the terror of death, more than sex, drives human striving, from heroism to devotion to leaders
  • Helps you see ambition, romantic love and loyalty to a cause as bids for significance against mortality
  • Weaves psychoanalysis and existential philosophy into one account of character as a necessary lie

Who it is for

  • Readers drawn to psychoanalysis and existential philosophy
  • Therapists weighing what therapy can and cannot cure
  • People puzzled by why followers surrender to leaders

What the summary covers

  1. Death as the Mainspring1 min
  2. The Urge to Be a Hero2 min
  3. The Terror of Death2 min
  4. Half Animal, Half Symbol2 min
  5. Character as a Vital Lie2 min
  6. Kierkegaard's School of Anxiety2 min
  7. Freud's Two Reluctances2 min
  8. The Spell Cast by Persons3 min
  9. Love and Creativity as Religions2 min
  10. Neurosis and the Need for Illusion2 min
  11. Mental Illness as Failed Heroism1 min
  12. What Is the Heroic Individual?3 min

Recommended by

  • Elisabeth Kubler RossPhysician and author of On Death And Dying
    It puts together what others have torn to pieces and rendered useless.

About the author

  • Ernest BeckerAmerican cultural anthropologist who died in 1974
    • Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrant parents
    • Served in the infantry in World War II and helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp
    • After the war studied at Syracuse University, then worked at the U.S. Embassy in Paris
    • Completed a PhD in cultural anthropology at Syracuse in 1960
    • First book Zen: A Rational Critique (1961) grew out of his dissertation
    • Taught at Berkeley, San Francisco State and, from 1969, Simon Fraser University
    • Diagnosed with colon cancer in November 1972; died 6 March 1974 aged 49

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