The Accursed Share: an Essay on General Economy, Vol. 1: Consumption

Most Anglo-American readers know Bataille as a novelist. The Accursed Share provides an excellent introduction to Bataille the philosopher. Here he uses his unique economic theory as the basis for an incisive inquiry into the very nature of civilization. Unlike conventional economic models based on notions of scarcity, Bataille's theory develops the concept of excess: a civilization, he argues, reveals its order most clearly in the treatment of its surplus energy. The result is a brilliant blend of ethics, aesthetics, and cultural anthropology that challenges both mainstream economics and ethnology.

• The Accursed Share, Vols. 2 and 3: The History of Eroticism and Sovereignty
• Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939
• Theory of Religion
• Erotism: Death and Sensuality
• Inner Experience (SUNY series, Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory)
• Modern Classics Story of the Eye (Penguin Classics)
• Society Of The Spectacle
• The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Acéphale and Lectures to the College of Sociology
• Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics)
• A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia