Richard Parmentier is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Brandeis University. His studies in semiotic anthropology Signs in Society and Signs and Society discuss the subject the context of its “twin peaks” of Charles Sanders Peirce and Ferdinand de Saussure. I discovered Parmentier’s Amazon Listmania! lists many years ago–I believe they were linked off of a Hans Blumenberg book–and they were responsible for introducing me to a number of works of great scholarship.
Unfortunately, Amazon subsequently discontinued its Listmania! feature and deleted all lists that had ever been posted. This still dismays me. The internet does not cater to intellectual content and Amazon had, in its way, managed to cultivate a disorganized but incredibly worthwhile amount of organic intellectual work.
I archived Parmentier’s lists before they were taken down, and he has kindly permitted me to repost them here. I encourage people to delve into the lists and discover something new.
I have retained Parmentier’s introductory notes at the beginning of each list.
David Auerbach1. Really Important Books
I keep a special selection of books close-to-hand in my study, not because they contain information I need to refer to on a regular basis but because each embodies a particular mode of argumentation that I find useful to keep in mind (and difficult to remember in detail). In the (hypothetical) event of having to abandon ship, I hope I would have time to grab at least these volumes.
Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt
Jan Assmann Cornell University Press
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature - Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition
Erich Auerbach Princeton University Press
The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (University of Texas Press Slavic Series)
M. M. Bakhtin University of Texas Press
Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford Paperbacks)
Michael Baxandall Oxford University Press
Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition (Oxford-Warburg Studies)
Michael Baxandall Clarendon Press
Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art
Hans Belting University of Chicago Press
The Arcades Project
Walter Benjamin Belknap Press
Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages
R. Howard Howard Bloch University of Chicago Press
The Genesis of the Copernican World (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Hans Blumenberg The MIT Press
Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity
Peter Brown University of California Press
The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge Studies in New Art History and Criticism)
Michael Camille Cambridge University Press
The Philosophy of the Enlightenment: Updated Edition
Ernst Cassirer Princeton University Press
The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification (Advances in Semiotics)
Naomi Cumming Indiana University Press
Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750
Lorraine Daston, Katharine Park Zone Books
The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece
Marcel Detienne Zone Books
The Mirror, the Window, and the Telescope: How Renaissance Linear Perspective Changed Our Vision of the Universe
Samuel Y. Edgerton Cornell University Press
Archaeology of Knowledge (Routledge Classics) (Volume 3)
Michel Foucault Routledge
The Mediation of Ornament
Oleg Grabar Princeton University Press
Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World
Stephen Greenblatt University of Chicago Press
Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (Musical Meaning and Interpretation)
Robert S. Hatten Indiana University Press
Language in Literature (Belknap Press)
Roman Jakobson Belknap Press
The King's Two Bodies
Ernst H. Kantorowicz Princeton University Press
Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.)
Reinhart Koselleck Columbia University Press
On Representation
Louis Marin Stanford University Press
Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason
Walter J. Ong S.J. University of Chicago Press
Freud y filosofía: Un ensayo de interpretación
Paul Ricoeur, Denis Savage Motilal Banarsidass
The Implications of Literacy
Brian Stock Princeton University Press
Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii (English and French Edition)
Valerio Valeri Univ of Chicago Pr
Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece
Jean-Pierre Vernant, Pierre Vidal-Naquet Zone Books
The Art of Memory
Frances A. Yates University of Chicago Press
The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World
Pierre Vidal-Naquet Johns Hopkins University Press
Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond
Gregory Nagy Cambridge University Press
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Jurgen Habermas The MIT Press
Orientalism
Edward W. Said Penguin Books
Analyzing Bach Cantatas
Eric Chafe Oxford University Press
Categories of Medieval Culture
A. J. Gurevich Routledge Kegan & Paul
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Volume 22)
Northrop Frye University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Archaic Roman Religion
Professor Georges Dumézil The Johns Hopkins University Press
History of Madness
Michel Foucault Routledge
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Post-Contemporary Interventions)
Fredric Jameson Duke University Press
2. Great Short Books
When challenged to present a substantive yet succinct account of their subject matter in less than 150 pages, a number of scholars have written remarkable short books. Some of these books were originally lecture series and, thus, maximize the clarity of presentation. Others represent syntheses or summaries of larger works of scholarship. And, in some cases, authors have expanded what was basically an article-length work into a tidy monograph. I don’t include in this list books that collect independent articles.
Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature) (French Edition)
Mieke Bal Indiana University Press
The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (The Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures Series)
Jacob Bronowski Yale University Press
The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (The Haskell Lectures on History of Religions)
Peter Brown University Of Chicago Press
The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy
Ernst Cassirer, Mario Domandi University of Chicago Press
Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China
K. C. Chang Harvard University Press
The Riddle of Nostradamus: A Critical Dialogue (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
Professor Georges Dumézil The Johns Hopkins University Press
Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India
Diana Eck Columbia University Press
Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages
Umberto Eco Yale University Press
Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs (Roman Literature and its Contexts)
Denis Feeney Cambridge University Press
The Enigma of Piero: Piero Della Francesca
Carlo Ginzburg Verso
The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present
Eric A. Havelock Yale University Press
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
George Kubler Yale University Press
Byzantium: Revised Edition (British Museum Paperbacks)
Rowena Loverance Harvard University Press
Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in the Age of Romanesque and Gothic
Charles M. Radding, William Clark Yale University Press
Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom (Asao Special Publications ; No. 1)
Marshall D. Sahlins University of Michigan Press
From Topic to Tale: Logic and Narrativity in the Middle Ages (Theory & History of Literature)
Eugene Vance Univ of Minnesota Pr
The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World
David Ulansey Oxford University Press
On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton Classic Editions)
Joseph R. Strayer Princeton University Press
Race Matters
Cornel West Beacon Press
Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes
L. S. Vygotsky Harvard University Press
The Many Faces of Realism (Paul Carus Lectures)
Hilary Putnam Open Court Publishing Company
The Origins of Greek Thought
Jean-Pierre Vernant Cornell University Press
Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages
Jacques Le Goff Zone Books
Six lecons sur le son et le sens (Arguments) (French Edition)
Roman Jakobson Éditions de Minuit
Verse with Prose from Petronius to Dante: The Art and Scope of the Mixed Form (Carl Newell Jackson Lectures)
Peter Dronke Harvard University Press
The Decipherment of Linear B (Canto)
John Chadwick Cambridge University Press
Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture
Walter Burkert Harvard University Press
The Tremulous Private Body: Essays on Subjection (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)
Francis Barker University of Michigan Press
Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History)
Philippe Ariès Johns Hopkins University Press
The Old World and the New: 1492-1650 (Canto)
J. H. Elliott Cambridge University Press
Mental Illness and Psychology
Michel Foucault University of California Press
Metaphysical Song
Gary Tomlinson Princeton University Press
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition
Benedict Anderson Verso
Man and Nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science)
Allen Debus Cambridge University Press
The Rise of Universities (Foundations of Higher Education)
Charles Homer Haskins Transaction Publishers
An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (Phoenix Books)
Edward H. Levi University Of Chicago Press
Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism
Erwin Panofsky Archabbey Publications
3. Big Books
Here are some big books in my collection that cover the topic without the constraint of space. There is some comfort in knowing that one will not need to read another book on a topic for quite a while.
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. 1
Fernand Braudel University of California Press
Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe
James A. Brundage University of Chicago Press
The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests
Geoffrey E. Maurice Ste. Croix Cornell University Press
Medieval Latin and the rise of European love-lyric (Oxford University Press Academic Monograph Reprints)
Peter Dronke Clarendon P
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580
Eamon Duffy Yale University Press
Frege: Philosophy of Language, Second Edition
Michael Dummett Harvard University Press
Python
Joseph Fontenrose University of California Press
The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism (Vol. 1) (Enlightenment an Interpretation) (v. 1)
Peter Gay W. W. Norton & Company
Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age
Peter Green University of California Press
Traces on the Rhodian Shore
Clarence J. Glacken University of California Press
Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750
Jonathan I. Israel Oxford University Press
The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making
Adrian Johns University of Chicago Press
Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis
Ian Kershaw W. W. Norton & Company
The Reformation: A History
Diarmaid MacCulloch Penguin Books
The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies
Thomas C. Mcevilley Allworth
Rome, the Greek World, and the East: Volume 3: The Greek World, the Jews, and the East (Studies in the History of Greece and Rome)
Fergus Millar The University of North Carolina Press
After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC
Steven Mithen Harvard University Press
The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain
B. Netanyahu New York Review Books
Stonehenge
John North Free Press
A History of Medieval Spain (Cornell Paperbacks)
Joseph F. O'Callaghan Cornell University Press
The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition
John Greville Agard Pocock Princeton University Press
Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
Richard Rhodes Simon & Schuster
Reversing the Gaze: Amar Singh's Diary, A Colonial Subject's Narrative of Imperial India (Oxford India Paperbacks)
Amar Singh Oxford University Press
Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960
Edward H. Spicer University of Arizona Press
Family, Sex, and Marriage: 1500 To 1800 (Penguin History)
Lawrence Stone Penguin UK
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
Charles Taylor Harvard University Press
The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Carleton Library Series)
Bruce G. Trigger McGill-Queen's University Press
God's War: A New History of the Crusades
Christopher Tyerman Belknap Press
How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics
Calvert Watkins Oxford University Press
Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge Paperback Library)
Richard S. Westfall Cambridge University Press
The Pivot of the Four Quarters: A Preliminary Enquiry into the Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City
Paul Wheatley Aldine Publishing Company
History of the Goths
Herwig Wolfram, Thomas J. Dunlap University of California Press
Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884–1920
Michael W. Young Yale University Press
The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge (Director's Circle Book)
Michael McKeon Johns Hopkins University Press
Utopian Thought in the Western World (Belknap Press)
Frank E. Manuel, Fritzie P. Manuel Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance
Ernst Mayr Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages
Marshall Clagett Univ of Wisconsin Pr
The Mechanization of the World Picture: Pythagoras to Newton
Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis Princeton University Press
4. Risky Books
Here are a group of books that take risks, either in advancing an original hypothesis, charting a new direction for research, or proposing an innovative methodology. Not everyone will agree with these authors, but readers will be struck by their creativity and daring and will be envious of their ability to take a path less traveled by.
Aztecs: An Interpretation
Inga Clendinnen Cambridge University Press
The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time
William Sullivan Broadway Books
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Julian Jaynes Mariner Books
Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600
Jessie Ann Owens Oxford University Press
Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made
Eugene D. Genovese Vintage
Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe
John Boswell Vintage
Phrasikleia: An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece (Myth and Poetics)
Jesper Svenbro Cornell University Press
Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life
Steven Shapin, Simon Schaffer Princeton University Press
Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth
Giorgio de Santillana, Hertha von Dechen Nonpareil Books
The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry
Milman Parry Oxford University Press
The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic (Myth and Poetics)
Leonard Muellner Cornell University Press
Galileo: Heretic
Pietro Redondi Princeton University Press
Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985, Volume 1)
martin Bernal Rutland Local History & Record Society
Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
Hayden White Johns Hopkins University Press
From Scythia to Camelot (Arthurian Characters and Themes)
C. Scott Littleton, Linda A. Malcor Routledge
The Elementary Structures of Kinship
Claude Levi-Strauss Beacon Press
The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other
Tzvetan Todorov University of Oklahoma Press
Appendix: Richard Parmentier’s Books
I add these for convenience. –DBA
Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology (Advances in Semiotics)
Richard J. Parmentier Indiana University Press
Signs and Society: Further Studies in Semiotic Anthropology
Richard J. Parmentier Indiana University Press