The Denial of Death

By: Ernest Becker

Narrated by: Raymond Todd

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is 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 more than 30 years after its writing.

©1973 Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (P)2005 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"A brave work of electrifying intelligence and passion, optimistic and revolutionary, destined to endure." (New York Times Book Review)

"Ranks among the truly important books of the year. Professor Becker writes with power and brilliant insight." (Publishers Weekly)

A Classic in Social Psychology

Based on the work of Freud's least credited successor, Otto Rank, The Denial Of Death weaves an irrefutable argument that human aggression stems from an overweening hubris based exactly in the daily repression of the inevitability of our own individual death. In this denial, we attack and metaphorically or actually kill others--this can range from talking about our neighbor behind his back to all-out assassination on the battlefield. There is no easy-breezy solution to this problem, as in many lesser popular works--Becker sees human nature remaining more or less the same--but he does urge the reader toward redirecting hateful energies away from human scapegoats and toward abstractions like human suffering itself. A penetrating and unflinching work completed just before Becker's own demise from cancer. A must read.

heavy and dense

far more a work of criticism than a treatise on the subject. interesting and thought provoking, but dense and focused a LOT on Freud. also, some discussion of sexuality is incredibly outdated.

A really amazing book

Amazing, Interesting, complex and kind of funny in a wierd way (or at least for me).

A combination of weltanschauungs from great minds

My brain hurts real good.

I've read some of Alice Miller, Jung, Ayn Rand, and Aristotle, Buddhist texts, and popular anarchist literature and this is an amazing psychoanalytic work. It helps me to understand a lot more about my place in society and the universe, tying together the knowledge I gained from previously mentioned authors and expanding my view further, or maybe rather more narrowly. Love it. Absolutely recommend it if you have a pretty good grasp of the practicalities of objectivism.

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Could've done without the chapters on Freud, but excellent overall. I think Ill buy the book for reference.

Thought provoking

Really makes you think about the rsasons we do things. The notion of immortality projects as driving force felt like new thinking and was explained in a way that made sense.

Awesome book.

Fantastic once in a lifetime book. Not everyone will understand it but that's the beauty of it.

Very Interesting

This was my first book on the topic of Death and its very good.

Many of the themes stuck with me as i was going through some existential crisis phase.

5 Stars with a Hedge...

This book is a must-read for a serious minded person - in my humble young opinion, but with one hedge: namely that Becker is far too overconfident in proclaiming the scientific fact of many psychoanalytic ideas. They are established to him in the sense that they can be fit into a coherent framework of altered Freudianism. He could use a dose of Popper. Perhaps some Foucault. On the other hand, this type if freethinking and examination of inner life and intuitions has been sucked out of modern thought, or so it seems to me. There is a lot of insight into human anxiety in philosophy and psychoanalysis that has been thrown out due to the methods people took to get there. I think a full intellectual life requires thinking beyond the bounds of strict empirical knowledge.

Kept me hooked while I’m at work

Honestly this is the first run in with Ernest Becker and it was a very enlightening experience. a bit brash on details but very thorough, while the reader did him Justice with conveying his points