The Ernest Becker Reader
Ernest BeckerPublished2005
Pages248
Formatpaperback
PublisherErnest Becker Foundation
Synopsis
Ernest Becker (1924-1974) was an astute observer of society and human behavior during America's turbulent 1960s and 1970s. Trained in social anthropology and driven by a transcending curiosity about human motivations, Becker doggedly pursued his basic research question, "What makes people act the way they do?" Dissatisfied with what he saw as narrowly fragmented methods in the contemporary social sciences and impelled by a belief that humankind more than ever needed a disciplined, rational, and empirically based understanding of itself, Becker slowly created a powerful interdisciplinary vision of the human sciences, one in which each discipline is rooted in a basic truth concerning the human condition. That truth became an integral part of Becker's emerging social science. Almost inadvertently, he outlined a perspective on human motivations that is perhaps the most broadly interdisciplinary to date. His perspective traverses not only the biological, psychological, and social sciences but also the humanities and educational, political, and religious studies. Ernest Becker is best known for the books written in the last few years before his death from cancer, including the highly praised Pulitzer Prize-winning volumeThe Denial of Death(1974) andEscape from Evil(1975). These late works, however, were built on a distinguished body of earlier books, essays, and reviews. The power and strength of Becker's ideas are fully present in his early works, which underlie his later contributions and give direction for interpreting the development of his ideas.
Although Ernest Becker's life and career were cut short, his major writings have remained continually in print and have captured the interest of subsequent generations of readers.The Ernest Becker Readermakes available for the first time in one volume much of Becker's early work and thus places his later work in proper context. It is a major contribution to the ongoing interest in Becker's ideas.
Daniel Liechtyis associate professor of social work and a member of the graduate faculty at Illinois State University.
"A wonderful collection of the works of Ernest Becker from early writings to more famous later selections. Essential reading for the twenty-first century leader!" - John Gardiner, Seattle University
Recommendations
The Denial of Death
by Ernest Becker
Since you've engaged with Becker's collected early work, his magnum opus deserves a direct read—it's the culmination of everything in the Reader, where his theory of human motivation crystallizes around mortality anxiety. This is where Becker's interdisciplinary vision reaches its most powerful synthesis, connecting Freud, Kierkegaard, and anthropology into a unified argument about why humans construct meaning.
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The Savage Detectives A Novel
by Roberto Bolaño
This might seem like a left turn from Becker, but Bolaño's labyrinthine novel operates as a kind of anthropological investigation into how people construct identity and meaning through literature and obsession—it's Becker's theories about symbolic immortality projects playing out across 900 pages of interconnected lives and literary pursuits. The novel shares Becker's conviction that understanding human behavior requires looking at the whole messy interdisciplinary picture, not isolated academic silos.
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The Apocalyptic Vision of Mikhail Bulgakov's the Master and Margarita (Studies in Slavic Language & Literature)
by Edward E. Ericson
Written in the 1960s Soviet Union, Bulgakov's masterpiece explores the same fundamental question Becker pursued—what makes people act the way they do?—but through a surreal, multi-layered narrative that weaves together theology, politics, and human psychology. Like Becker, Bulgakov refuses to accept narrow disciplinary boundaries and instead creates a vision where spiritual, social, and psychological truths interpenetrate.
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Finite and Infinite Games
by James P. Carse
Carse's deceptively slim meditation on how humans construct meaning through the games we play shares Becker's conviction that understanding human behavior requires stepping back to see the fundamental patterns underneath surface activity. Where Becker traces mortality anxiety, Carse traces the difference between playing to win versus playing to continue playing—both are asking how we organize our lives around invisible rules.
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The Water of Life A Tale of the Grateful Dead, a Folk Story
by Alan Trist
This recent work of narrative history reconstructs a 1740s naval disaster through competing eyewitness accounts, forcing you to grapple with how people construct meaning and justify their actions under extreme conditions—it's applied Beckerian analysis. Mametsch's method mirrors Becker's interdisciplinary approach by treating the historical record as psychological and anthropological evidence, showing how the same events generate radically different narratives depending on what humans need to believe about themselves.
View bookAbout Ernest Becker
E
Ernest Becker
1924–1974
Biography coming soon.
View author page