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.
Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature - Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition
Price: $58.65
29 used & new available from $4.62
The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (University of Texas Press Slavic Series)
Price: $29.95
81 used & new available from $4.38
Price: $19.95
156 used & new available from $0.90
Price: $74.03
21 used & new available from $18.54
Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art
Price: $226.98
16 used & new available from $70.50
Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages
Price: $37.00
24 used & new available from $9.13
The Genesis of the Copernican World (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)
Price: $55.00
15 used & new available from $29.90
Price: $50.99
8 used & new available from
The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification (Advances in Semiotics)
Price: $39.99
24 used & new available from $25.64
Price: $23.95
20 used & new available from $19.32
Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World (Carpenter Lectures)
Price: $14.95
56 used & new available from $1.35
Price: $29.00
29 used & new available from $9.35
Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought.)
Price: $36.00
30 used & new available from $28.45
Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason
Price: $33.90
34 used & new available from $13.99
Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii (English and French Edition)
Price: $205.00
1 used & new available from
The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World
Price: $30.00
16 used & new available from $18.96
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Volume 22)
Price: ---
0 used & new available from
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Post-Contemporary Interventions)
Price: $19.99
62 used & new available from $8.86
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.
Price: $21.03
21 used & new available from $2.14
The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (The Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures Series)
Price: $18.83
54 used & new available from $1.75
Price: $24.50
70 used & new available from $1.25
The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy
Price: $28.00
6 used & new available from $22.50
Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China
Price: $24.43
47 used & new available from $3.79
The Riddle of Nostradamus: A Critical Dialogue (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)
Price: $66.02
5 used & new available from $32.36
Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs (Roman Literature and its Contexts)
Price: $37.24
18 used & new available from $5.30
The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present
Price: $21.99
21 used & new available from $13.77
Byzantium: Revised Edition (British Museum Paperbacks)
Price: $24.95
10 used & new available from $7.13
Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in the Age of Romanesque and Gothic
Price: $38.28
28 used & new available from $3.57
Price: $18.95
51 used & new available from $0.94
From Topic to Tale: Logic and Narrativity in the Middle Ages (Theory & History of Literature)
Price: $49.00
6 used & new available from $10.89
The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World
Price: $19.99
40 used & new available from $6.02
On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton Classics, 76)
Price: $43.52
12 used & new available from $4.19
Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes
Price: $31.00
67 used & new available from $3.52
Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages
Price: $19.95
64 used & new available from $2.91
Six lecons sur le son et le sens (Arguments) (French Edition)
Price: $25.50
10 used & new available from $12.99
Price: $40.00
13 used & new available from $19.75
Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture
Price: $30.00
20 used & new available from $10.19
Price: $26.95
8 used & new available from $4.73
Price: $19.60
55 used & new available from $1.80
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition
Price: $7.99
72 used & new available from $1.33
Man and Nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge Studies in the History of Science)
Price: $16.38
71 used & new available from $1.75
The Rise of Universities (Foundations of Higher Education)
Price: $52.95
17 used & new available from $10.00
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
Price: $47.49
43 used & new available from $7.54
The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests
Price: $51.26
22 used & new available from $39.00
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580
Price: $34.61
21 used & new available from $14.99
The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism (Enlightenment an Interpretation)
Price: $18.69
63 used & new available from $6.59
Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (Volume 1)
Price: $62.95
41 used & new available from $16.34
Price: $47.95
31 used & new available from $15.90
Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750
Price: $49.20
36 used & new available from $32.06
The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making
Price: $46.00
47 used & new available from $1.50
The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies
Price: $37.99
23 used & new available from $24.19
Price: $49.95
13 used & new available from $44.96
After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5000 BC
Price: $31.00
56 used & new available from $10.00
The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth-Century Spain
Price: $150.00
16 used & new available from $24.82
The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition
Price: $214.82
19 used & new available from $6.79
Price: $19.99
1 used & new available from
Price: $54.15
45 used & new available from $2.05
Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
Price: $36.00
45 used & new available from $23.61
Price: $135.00
5 used & new available from $85.00
How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics
Price: $43.72
27 used & new available from $30.50
Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge Paperback Library)
Price: $42.56
31 used & new available from $11.34
Price: $19.00
8 used & new available from
Price: $37.66
10 used & new available from $26.29
Utopian Thought in the Western World (Belknap Press)
Price: $109.00
23 used & new available from $28.00
The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance
Price: $40.04
59 used & new available from $2.96
The Mechanization of the World Picture: Pythagoras to Newton
Price: $27.29
11 used & new available from $19.96
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.
The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time
Price: $17.59
41 used & new available from $5.74
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Price: $17.99
69 used & new available from $7.20
Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600
Price: $40.83
12 used & new available from $40.09
Phrasikleia: An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece (Myth and Poetics)
Price: $125.00
13 used & new available from $34.98
Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life
Price: $60.29
24 used & new available from $4.47
Price: $18.99
75 used & new available from $10.40
The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Milman Parry
Price: $51.67
19 used & new available from $47.99
The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic (Myth and Poetics)
Price: $29.17
23 used & new available from $18.99
Price: $49.57
55 used & new available from $4.07
Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
Price: $223.88
31 used & new available from $4.60
Price: $46.08
18 used & new available from $34.95
Appendix: Richard Parmentier’s Books
I add these for convenience. –DBA
Signs in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology (Advances in Semiotics)
Price: $56.56
16 used & new available from $47.45
Signs and Society: Further Studies in Semiotic Anthropology
Price: $35.00
23 used & new available from $28.08
