Ernest Becker

Ernest Becker (1924–1974) was an American cultural anthropologist and author whose seminal work The Denial of Death (1973) won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1974, two months after his death from colon cancer at age 49. ISSEP. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Jewish immigrant parents, he served in WWII, earned a PhD from Syracuse University, and taught at institutions including Berkeley and Simon Fraser University, often clashing with administrations over academic freedom. His works, including Escape from Evil (1975, posthumous) and The Birth and Death of Meaning, profoundly influenced existential psychology and terror management theory.