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 Auerbach

1. 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
Assmann, Jan (Author), Lorton, David (Translator)
(Cornell University Press)

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature - Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition
Erich Auerbach (Author), Willard R. Trask (Translator), Edward W. Said (Introduction)
(Princeton University Press)

The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (University of Texas Press Slavic Series)
Bakhtin, M. M. (Author), Holquist, Michael (Editor), Emerson, Caryl (Translator), Holquist, Michael (Translator)
(University of Texas Press)

Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style (Oxford Paperbacks)
Baxandall, Michael (Author)
(Oxford University Press)

Giotto And The Orators: Humanist Observers of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition (Oxford-Warburg Studies)
Baxandall, Michael (Author)
(Oxford University Press, U.S.A.)

Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art
Belting, Hans (Author), Jephcott, Edmund (Translator)
(University of Chicago Press)

The Arcades Project
Benjamin, Walter (Author), Eiland, Howard (Translator), McLaughlin, Kevin (Translator)
(Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press)

Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages
Bloch, R. Howard (Author)
(University of Chicago Press)

The Genesis of the Copernican World (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Blumenberg, Hans (Author), Wallace, Robert M. (Translator)
(The MIT Press)

Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity
Brown, Peter (Author)
(University of California Press)

The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge Studies in New Art History and Criticism)
Camille, Michael (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)

The Philosophy of the Enlightenment: Updated Edition
Cassirer, Ernst (Author), Gay, Peter (Foreword)
(Princeton University Press)

The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification (Advances in Semiotics)
Cumming, Naomi (Author)
(Indiana University Press)

Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750
Daston, Lorraine (Author), Park, Katharine (Author)
(Zone Books)

The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece
Detienne, Marcel (Author), Lloyd, Janet (Translator), Vidal-Naquet, Pierre (Foreword)
(Zone Books)

The Mirror, the Window, and the Telescope: How Renaissance Linear Perspective Changed Our Vision of the Universe
Edgerton, Samuel Y. (Author)
(Cornell University Press)

Archaeology of Knowledge (Routledge Classics)
Foucault, Michel (Author)
(Routledge)

The Mediation of Ornament
Grabar, Oleg (Author)
(Princeton University Press)

Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World
Greenblatt, Stephen (Author)
(University of Chicago Press)

Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (Musical Meaning and Interpretation)
Hatten, Robert S. (Author)
(Indiana University Press)

Language in Literature (Belknap Press)
Jakobson, Roman (Author), Pomorska, Krystyna (Editor), Rudy, Stephen (Editor)
(Belknap Press)

The King's Two Bodies
Ernst H. Kantorowicz (Author)
(Princeton University Press)

Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.)
Koselleck, Reinhart (Author), Tribe, Keith (Translator)
(Columbia University Press)

On Representation
Marin, Louis (Author), Porter, Catherine (Translator)
(Stanford University Press)

Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason
Ong S.J., Walter J. (Author), Johns, Adrian (Foreword)
(University of Chicago Press)

Freud y filosofía: Un ensayo de interpretación
Paul Ricoeur (Author), Denis Savage (Author)
(Motilal Banarsidass)

The Implications of Literacy
Stock, Brian (Author)
(Princeton University Press)

Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii (English and French Edition)
Valeri, Valerio (Author)
(Univ of Chicago Pr)

Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece
Vernant, Jean-Pierre (Author), Vidal-Naquet, Pierre (Author), Lloyd, Janet (Translator)
(Zone Books)

The Art of Memory
Frances A. Yates (Author)
(University of Chicago Press)

The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World
Vidal-Naquet, Pierre (Author), Szegedy-Maszak, Andrew (Translator)
(Johns Hopkins University Press)

Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond
Nagy, Gregory (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Habermas, Jurgen (Author)
(Polity Press)

Orientalism
Said, Edward W. (Author)
(Penguin Books)

ANALYZING BACH CANTATAS
Chafe, Eric (Author)
(Oxford University Press USA)

Categories of Medieval Culture
Gurevich, A. J. (Author)
(Routledge Kegan & Paul)

Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Volume 22)
Frye, Northrop (Author), Denham, Robert (Editor)
(University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division)

Archaic Roman Religion
Dumézil, Professor Georges (Author)
(The Johns Hopkins University Press)

History of Madness
Foucault, Michel (Author), Khalfa, Jean (Editor), Murphy, Jonathan (Translator)
(Routledge)

Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Post-Contemporary Interventions)
Jameson, Fredric (Author)
(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)
Bal, Mieke (Author)
(Indiana University Press)

The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (The Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures Series)
Bronowski, Jacob (Author)
(Yale University Press)

The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (The Haskell Lectures on History of Religions)
Brown, Peter (Author)
(University Of Chicago Press)

The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy
Cassirer, Ernst (Author), Domandi, Mario (Translator), Domandi, Mario (Introduction)
(University of Chicago Press)

Art, Myth and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China
Chang, K. C. (Author)
(Harvard University Press)

The Riddle of Nostradamus: A Critical Dialogue (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
Dumézil, Professor Georges (Author), Wing, Ms. Betsy (Translator)
(The Johns Hopkins University Press)

Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India
Eck, Diana (Author)
(Columbia University Press)

Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages
Eco, Umberto (Author), Bredin, Hugh (Translator)
(Yale University Press)

Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs (Roman Literature and its Contexts)
Feeney, Denis (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)

The Enigma of Piero: Piero Della Francesca
Ginzburg, Carlo (Author), Ryle, Martin (Translator), Soper, Kate (Translator), Burke, Peter (Introduction)
(Verso)

The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present
Havelock, Eric A. (Author)
(Yale University Press)

The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
George Kubler (Author)
(Yale University Press)

Byzantium: Revised Edition (British Museum Paperbacks)
Loverance, Rowena (Author)
(Harvard University Press)

Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in the Age of Romanesque and Gothic
Radding, Charles M. (Author), Clark, William (Author)
(Yale University Press)

Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom (Canada, Origins and Options)
Sahlins, Marshall D. (Author)
(University of Michigan Press)

From Topic to Tale: Logic and Narrativity in the Middle Ages (Theory & History of Literature)
Vance, Eugene (Author)
(Univ of Minnesota Pr)

The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World
Ulansey, David (Author)
(Oxford University Press, USA)

On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton Classics)
Strayer, Joseph R. (Author), Tilly, Charles (Foreword), Jordan, William Chester (Foreword)
(Princeton University Press)

Race Matters
West, Cornel (Author)
(Beacon Press)

Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes
Vygotsky, L S (Author), Cole, Michael (Editor), John-Steiner, Vera (Editor), Scribner, Sylvia (Editor), Souberman, Ellen (Editor)
(Harvard Univ Pr)

The Many Faces of Realism (Paul Carus Lectures)
Putnam, Hilary (Author)
(Open Court Publishing Company)

The Origins of Greek Thought
Vernant, Jean-Pierre (Author)
(Cornell University Press)

Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages
Goff, Jacques Le (Author), Ranum, Patricia (Translator)
(Zone Books)

Six lecons sur le son et le sens (Arguments) (French Edition)
Jakobson, Roman (Author)
(Ed Du Minuit)

Verse with Prose from Petronius to Dante: The Art and Scope of the Mixed Form (Carl Newell Jackson Lectures)
Dronke, Peter (Author)
(Harvard University Press)

The Decipherment of Linear B (Canto)
Chadwick, John (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)

Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture
Burkert, Walter (Author)
(Harvard University Press)

The Tremulous Private Body: Essays on Subjection (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)
Barker, Francis (Author)
(University of Michigan Press)

Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History)
Ariès, Philippe (Author), Ranum, Patricia (Translator)
(Johns Hopkins University Press)

The Old World and the New: 1492-1650 (Canto)
Elliott, J. H. (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)

Mental Illness and Psychology
Foucault, Michel (Author), Dreyfus, Hubert (Foreword)
(University of California Press)

Metaphysical Song
Tomlinson, Gary (Author)
(Princeton University Press)

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition
Anderson, Benedict (Author)
(Verso)

Man and Nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science)
Debus, Allen George (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)

The Rise of Universities (Foundations of Higher Education)
Haskins, Charles Homer (Author)
(Routledge)

An Introduction to Legal Reasoning (Phoenix Books)
Levi, Edward H. (Author)
(University Of Chicago Press)

Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism
Erwin Panofsky (Author)
(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
Braudel, Fernand (Author)
(University of California Press)

Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe
Brundage, James A. (Author)
(University of Chicago Press)

The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests
Ste. Croix, Geoffrey E. Maurice (Author)
(Cornell University Press)

Medieval Latin and the rise of European love-lyric (Oxford University Press Academic Monograph Reprints)
Dronke, Peter (Author)
(Clarendon P)

The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580
Duffy, Eamon (Author)
(Yale University Press)

Frege: Philosophy of Language, Second Edition
Dummett, Michael (Author)
(Harvard University Press)

Python
Fontenrose, Joseph (Author)
(University of California Press)

The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism (Vol. 1) (Enlightenment an Interpretation) (v. 1)
Gay, Peter (Author)
(W. W. Norton & Company)

Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Volume 1)
Green, Peter (Author)
(University of California Press)

Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century
Glacken, Clarence J. (Author)
(University of California Press)

Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750
Israel, Jonathan I. (Author)
(Oxford University Press)

The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making
Johns, Adrian (Author)
(University of Chicago Press)

Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis
Kershaw, Ian (Author)
(W. W. Norton & Company)

The Reformation: A History
MacCulloch, Diarmaid (Author)
(Penguin Books)

The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies
McEvilley, Thomas (Author)
(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)
Millar, Fergus (Author)
(University of North Carolina Press)

After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5000 BC
Mithen, Steven (Author)
(Harvard University Press)

The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain
Netanyahu, B. (Author)
(New York Review Books)

Stonehenge
North, John (Author)
(Free Press)

A History of Medieval Spain (Cornell Paperbacks)
O'Callaghan, Joseph F. (Author)
(Cornell University Press)

The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition
Pocock, John Greville Agard (Author)
(Princeton University Press)

Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
Rhodes, Richard (Author)
(Simon & Schuster)

Reversing the Gaze: Amar Singh's Diary, A Colonial Subject's Narrative of Imperial India (Oxford India Paperbacks)
Singh, Amar (Author), Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber (Editor), Rudolph, Lloyd I. (Editor), Kanota, Mohan Singh (Editor)
(Oxford University Press)

Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on Indians of the Southwest, 1533-1960
Spicer, Edward H. (Author)
(University of Arizona Press)

Family, Sex, and Marriage: 1500 To 1800 (Penguin History)
Stone, Lawrence (Author)
(Penguin UK)

Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
Taylor, Charles (Author)
(Harvard University Press)

The Children of Aataentsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660 (Carleton Library Series)
Trigger, Bruce G. (Author)
(McGill-Queen's University Press)

God’s War: A New History of the Crusades
Tyerman, Christopher (Author)
(Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press)

How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics
Watkins, Calvert (Author)
(Oxford University Press)

Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge Paperback Library)
Westfall, Richard S. (Author)
(Cambridge University Press)

The Pivot of the Four Quarters: A Preliminary Enquiry into the Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City
Wheatley, Paul (Author)
(Aldine Publishing Company)

History of the Goths
Wolfram, Herwig (Author), Dunlap, Thomas J. (Author)
(University of California Press)

Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884–1920
Young, Michael W. (Author)
(Yale University Press)

The Secret History of Domesticity: Public, Private, and the Division of Knowledge (Director's Circle Book)
McKeon, Michael (Author)
(Johns Hopkins University Press)

Utopian Thought in the Western World (Belknap Press)
Manuel, Frank E. (Author), Manuel, Fritzie P. (Author)
(Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press)

The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance
Mayr, Ernst (Author)
(Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press)

Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages
Clagett, Marshall (Author)
(Univ of Wisconsin Pr)

The Mechanization of the World Picture: Pythagoras to Newton
Dijksterhuis, Eduard Jan (Author), Dikshoorn, C. (Translator)
(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.