"It guides our thoughts and actions, from the great art we create to the devastating wars we wage. It's the real reason why we buy expensive cars and crave fame. It drives us to put our health at risk and to disguise our animal nature. Think you're not constantly thinking about death? This book shows it's at the heart of life. Psychologists Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski have spent twenty-five years of researching the many ways that fear of death - and our desire to transcend it - guides our behaviour. Their groundbreaking theory proposes that human culture infuses our lives with order, stability, significance, and purpose, which keeps the fear of death at bay and enables us to function moment to moment without becoming overwhelmed by the knowledge of our ultimate fate. They provide astonishing evidence of what happens when that fear breaks through: when reminded of their own death, judges dole out harsher punishments, people become more intolerant towards those different from themselves and more in favour of violence. But the fear needn't consume us. This book offers a compelling new paradigm for understanding the choices we make in life and immerses us in a new way of understanding human evolution, child development, history, religion, art, science, mental health, war, and politics in the twenty-first century. In so doing, it also reveals how we can better come to terms with death and learn to lead lives of courage, creativity, and compassion. Deep, important, and beautifully written, The Worm at the Core describes brilliant and utterly original research on a force so powerful it drives our lives, but so frightening that we cannot think clearly about it. (Daniel Gilbert author of Stumbling on Happiness). Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski are professors of psychology at Skidmore College, the University of Arizona, and the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, respectively. They have been collaborating on research and writing projects for more than thirty years"