The Denial of Death

Ernest Becker's 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning synthesis — arguing that human civilization is fundamentally a response to death anxiety, and that all cultural symbols, heroism, and immortality projects are death-denial mechanisms.

Creates the death anxiety as cultural motor thesis — The Denial of Death argues that the terrifying uniqueness of human self-awareness (we know we will die) drives all heroism, religion, narcissism, and cultural achievement; the thesis synthesizes Rank, Kierkegaard, Freud, and anthropology into the most ambitious single account of why humans create culture.