Fans pick 100 books like The Other Pareto

By Placido Bucolo (editor),

Here are 100 books that The Other Pareto fans have personally recommended if you like The Other Pareto. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of Vilfredo Pareto: Sociological Writings

Christopher Adair-Toteff Author Of Vilfredo Pareto's Contributions to Modern Social Theory: A Centennial Appraisal

From my list on Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was trained as a philosopher and have been a professor of philosophy for more than three decades. Beginning with Plato, I have been persuaded that reason is powerful. I am also a social theorist and have published scholarly books on Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Raymond Aron. Yet Pareto’s writings have convinced me that people are most often motivated by interests and passions and then use reasons to justify their behavior. Plato showed people as they ought to be; Pareto showed them as they are. Philosophy is important, but so is Pareto’s social psychology.

Christopher's book list on Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings

Christopher Adair-Toteff Why did Christopher love this book?

This is the best book to start your journey in understanding Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings

I recommend this book because it not only contains some of Pareto’s most important writings in a remarkably readable translation but also because S.E Finer provides an outstanding and lengthy introduction to many crucial aspects of Pareto’s sociology.

Finer was one of the most talented and objective scholars to write on Pareto’s thinking.

By S. E. Finer (editor), Vilfredo Pareto, Derick Mirfin (translator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vilfredo Pareto as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Book by Pareto, Vilfredo


Book cover of Pareto on Policy

Christopher Adair-Toteff Author Of Vilfredo Pareto's Contributions to Modern Social Theory: A Centennial Appraisal

From my list on Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was trained as a philosopher and have been a professor of philosophy for more than three decades. Beginning with Plato, I have been persuaded that reason is powerful. I am also a social theorist and have published scholarly books on Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Raymond Aron. Yet Pareto’s writings have convinced me that people are most often motivated by interests and passions and then use reasons to justify their behavior. Plato showed people as they ought to be; Pareto showed them as they are. Philosophy is important, but so is Pareto’s social psychology.

Christopher's book list on Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings

Christopher Adair-Toteff Why did Christopher love this book?

In Pareto on Policy, Warren Samuels attempted to provide a detailed commentary on Pareto’s Treatise on General Sociology or in the English language translation Mind and Society.

Samuel’s chapters all contain the term “policy” but the chapters themselves are focused on knowledge, power, freedom, control, and change. Samuel’s Pareto on Policy is the best commentary on Pareto’s magnum opus that I know.

By Warren Samuels,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pareto on Policy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Warren Samuels interprets Vilfredo Pareto's Treatise on General Sociology in terms of a general equilibrium model of policy. Three themes and one conviction run throughout the study. The first is a model of policy making involving three sets of variables: power, knowledge, and psychology. The second is a general equilibrium approach to the study of these variables emphasizing their fundamental interdependence. The third is the importance of Pareto's work.

Pareto is one of the few individuals whose work has had enormous influence in at least three social sciences in the twentieth century: economics, sociology, and political science. Despite Pareto's attempt…


Book cover of Pareto's General Sociology

Christopher Adair-Toteff Author Of Vilfredo Pareto's Contributions to Modern Social Theory: A Centennial Appraisal

From my list on Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was trained as a philosopher and have been a professor of philosophy for more than three decades. Beginning with Plato, I have been persuaded that reason is powerful. I am also a social theorist and have published scholarly books on Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Raymond Aron. Yet Pareto’s writings have convinced me that people are most often motivated by interests and passions and then use reasons to justify their behavior. Plato showed people as they ought to be; Pareto showed them as they are. Philosophy is important, but so is Pareto’s social psychology.

Christopher's book list on Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings

Christopher Adair-Toteff Why did Christopher love this book?

Lawrence J Henderson was one of the first Americans to take Pareto’s writings seriously. He was a professor at Harvard during the 1930s, and this 1935 book was an outgrowth of his interest in understanding Pareto’s thought.

The subtitle "A Physiologist’s Interpretation" indicates that his approach to Pareto’s work differed from most because he was a natural scientist rather than a social scientist. As a physiologist, H. was able to recognize Pareto's engineering background with the recognition of universally valid laws, yet he was also able to see how Pareto was influenced as an economist where there are high degrees of regularity.

That makes him one of the best authorities on Pareto's "General sociology". Henderson could see generalities that most social scientists could neither understand nor appreciate. 

Book cover of Vilfredo Pareto: Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries

Christopher Adair-Toteff Author Of Vilfredo Pareto's Contributions to Modern Social Theory: A Centennial Appraisal

From my list on Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was trained as a philosopher and have been a professor of philosophy for more than three decades. Beginning with Plato, I have been persuaded that reason is powerful. I am also a social theorist and have published scholarly books on Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Raymond Aron. Yet Pareto’s writings have convinced me that people are most often motivated by interests and passions and then use reasons to justify their behavior. Plato showed people as they ought to be; Pareto showed them as they are. Philosophy is important, but so is Pareto’s social psychology.

Christopher's book list on Vilfredo Pareto’s sociological writings

Christopher Adair-Toteff Why did Christopher love this book?

Joseph Femia has chosen 21 outstanding essays about Vilfredo Pareto, which are divided into three sections: Methodology, Social Theory, and Politics and Political Theory.

All 21 are important historical investigations of Pareto’s thinking. The best are two by Norberto Bobbio and those by James Lane and by A.J. Baker. Most importantly, Femia’s collection also contains S.E. Finer’s “Pareto and Pluto-democracy.”

As a philosopher who crosses several disciplines (sociology, economics, and theology), I really appreciated the way in which Pareto was shown in this book to transcend the boundaries between economics and sociology. There was no one except for Max Weber, who could move among disciplines as easily as Vilfredo Pareto. 

By Joseph V. Femia (editor), Alasdair J. Marshall (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vilfredo Pareto as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This collection examines the work of the Italian economist and social theorist Vilfredo Pareto, highlighting the extraordinary scope of his thought, which covers a vast range of academic disciplines. The volume underlines the enduring and contemporary relevance of Pareto's ideas on a bewildering variety of topics; while illuminating his attempt to unite different disciplines, such as history and sociology, in his quest for a 'holistic' understanding of society. Bringing together the world's leading experts on Pareto, this collection will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of sociology and social psychology, monetary theory and risk analysis, philosophy and…


Book cover of Queenship in Medieval Europe

Elena Woodacre Author Of Queens and Queenship

From my list on queens and queenship.

Why am I passionate about this?

Queens and queenship is a topic that has fascinated me since childhood when I first read about women like Cleopatra and Eleanor of Aquitaine. They ignited a passion to learn about the lives of royal women which led me from the ancient Mediterranean to medieval Europe, on into the early modern era, and has now gone truly global. I am particularly passionate to draw out the hidden histories of all the women who aren’t as well-known as their more famous counterparts and push for a fully global outlook in both queenship and royal studies in the works I write and the journal and two book series that I edit.

Elena's book list on queens and queenship

Elena Woodacre Why did Elena love this book?

Theresa Earenfight is a renowned queenship scholar whose ideas about queens and queenship inspired me when I was a graduate student and continue to excite me today. This is a book that I recommend to my own students as the perfect place to start with medieval queenship. Earenfight’s book moves chronologically across the Middle Ages, drawing together examples of queens from all across Europe to illustrate key ideas about queenship and demonstrate how different women exercised the queen’s office. An engaging read which is underpinned by years of research and deep expertise in the field.

By Theresa Earenfight,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Queenship in Medieval Europe as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Medieval queens led richly complex lives and were highly visible women active in a man's world. Linked to kings by marriage, family, and property, queens were vital to the institution of monarchy.

In this comprehensive and accessible introduction to the study of queenship, Theresa Earenfight documents the lives and works of queens and empresses across Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. The book:

* introduces pivotal research and sources in queenship studies, and includes exciting and innovative new archival research
* highlights four crucial moments across the full span of the Middle Ages - ca. 300, 700,…


Book cover of Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps and Monsters

Asa Simon Mittman Author Of The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous

From my list on explaining the history of monsters.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, I rewatched Star Wars until I wore out my VHS tape. I read every Dragonlance novel. I played a bit of D&D. When I got to college, I finally was allowed work on things that interested me. I found Art History, dove into Medieval Studies, and, in grad school, got serious about monsters. Monster Studies didn’t exist, but books were out (especially by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen), and my advisor encouraged me to follow my passions. My 15-year-old self would be astonished to learn that I’d get to read monster books, study monster art, and watch monster movies as a job!

Asa's book list on explaining the history of monsters

Asa Simon Mittman Why did Asa love this book?

This is a brilliant, wide-ranging, deeply-sourced study of the dynamics that underpinned and justified early modern colonization of the Americas. Mandeville’s Book of Marvels and Travels is the prehistory of the horrors of colonization; the sources at the heart of Davies’s study are colonization’s architecture: maps, book illustrations, freestanding prints, published texts, letters, journals, and on. With nuance and care, Davies rewrites the intellectual history of this period, confronting the dehumanizing, demonizing, monsterizing visual and textual rhetoric of colonial enterprises (which directly contributed to large-scale violence), but also looking carefully at nuances, differences, and shifts in this rhetoric over the course of the Renaissance.

By Surekha Davies,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Giants, cannibals and other monsters were a regular feature of Renaissance illustrated maps, inhabiting the Americas alongside other indigenous peoples. In a new approach to views of distant peoples, Surekha Davies analyzes this archive alongside prints, costume books and geographical writing. Using sources from Iberia, France, the German lands, the Low Countries, Italy and England, Davies argues that mapmakers and viewers saw these maps as careful syntheses that enabled viewers to compare different peoples. In an age when scholars, missionaries, native peoples and colonial officials debated whether New World inhabitants could - or should - be converted or enslaved, maps…


Book cover of Class, Citizenship, & Social Development

Nicos P. Mouzelis Author Of Post-Marxist Alternatives: The Construction of Social Orders

From my list on social sciences.

Why am I passionate about this?

After finishing my secondary education in Athens I got a degree in business administration at the University of Genova. The idea was to return to Greece to work in my father’s business. But I soon realized that I was neither interested in business theory nor going back to Greece to work in my father's organization. I decided to continue my studies in England focusing on the social sciences – first at Leicester University and then at the London School of Economics. After retiring I continued to write books and articles in Greek, English, and French. I have passion for reading and writing. It helps me psychologically as well to survive in a postmodern chaotic world.

Nicos' book list on social sciences

Nicos P. Mouzelis Why did Nicos love this book?

Marshall provides a very interesting analysis of the development of human rights.

He identifies three developmental stages: First the rights referring to property, freedom of speech, and freedom to religious beliefs and practices. Second the rights to vote and be elected in parliament and third the development of social rights (decent education, health care, and social welfare for old age). His analysis is focused in England.

But as a general overview is very useful for the study of citizenship.

By T. H. Marshall,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Class, Citizenship, & Social Development as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Reprint of the 1964 edition published by Doubleday under title "Sociology at the Crossroads". Contents: Introduction by Seymour Martin Lipset; Preface; Part One: Sociology Today and Tomorrow [Sociology at the Crossroads; Sociology: The Road Ahead; International Comprehension in and through Social Science]; Part Two: Social Class [Citizenship and Social Class; Changes in Social Stratification in the Twentieth Century; Recent History of Professionalism in Relation to Social Structure and Social Policy; Nature of Class Conflict; Nature and Determinants of Social Status; A Note on 'Status'; Work and Wealth; Property and Possessiveness]; Part Three: Social Welfare [Social Selection in the Welfare State;…


Book cover of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Martin Sternstein Author Of Barron's AP Statistics

From my list on statistical insights into social issues.

Why am I passionate about this?

I taught for 45 years at Ithaca College broken by two years as Fulbright Professor in West Africa at the University of Liberia. During my years in academia, I developed several new courses including a popular “Math in Africa” class and the first U.S. course for college credit in chess theory. I’ve always had a passion for and continue to have strong interests in (1) national educational and social issues concerning equal access to math education for all and (2) teaching others about the power of mathematics and statistics to help one more deeply understand social issues.

Martin's book list on statistical insights into social issues

Martin Sternstein Why did Martin love this book?

Steven Levitt, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, has written a thoughtful book at the layperson level to help one understand how mathematical and economic tools provide insights into sensitive social issues from racism to abortion.

He delves into predicting the long-term consequences of short-term decisions. This book is not intended for the college classroom, and it is controversial, but I found it to be a fascinating read.

By Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Freakonomics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The legendary bestseller that made millions look at the world in a radically different way returns in a new edition, now including an exclusive discussion between the authors and bestselling professor of psychology Angela Duckworth.

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? Which should be feared more: snakes or french fries? Why do sumo wrestlers cheat? In this groundbreaking book, leading economist Steven Levitt—Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and winner of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark medal for the economist under 40 who has made the greatest contribution to the discipline—reveals that…


Book cover of Social Theory and Social Structure

Jack Nusan Porter Author Of If Only You Could Bottle It: Memoirs of a Radical Son

From my list on the sociology of genocide and evil.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm an immigrant child-survivor of the Holocaust, came to America after living in a DP camp in Linz, Austria in 1947 with my wonderful parents. We lost 25 members of our family to the Nazis so I “know evil”. I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, went to Washington High School, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, and Northwestern University where I received a Ph.D. in sociology and studied with one of the best sociologists of deviance (Howie Becker). I combined sociology with deviance, evil, the Holocaust, and genocide, but as a progressive Zionist, I added socialist and kibbutz-life. All these things make up my memoir If Only You Could Bottle It: Memoirs of a Radical Son.

Jack's book list on the sociology of genocide and evil

Jack Nusan Porter Why did Jack love this book?

As I said, sociology can be filled with inscrutable jargon, but there are still classic theory books that I recommend.

Ok, it pays to have taken some sociology classes, but the following two books are important: Robert K. Merton’s Social Theory and Social Structure with its twin essays: the bearing of social theory on research and the bearing of research on social theory.

But despite Merton’s elegant theorizing, he was a genius at coining phrases that have entered out language: anomie, bureaucratic structure, reference groups, the self-fulfilling prophecy, and my favorite, actually taken from the Bible—the Mathew Effect, those who have will have more and those who don’t have will have less; meaning if you get a lot of honors, you’ll get more honors; if you have a lot of money, you’ll get more money and the poor people on the bottom will get few honors and money and will…

By Robert K. Merton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Social Theory and Social Structure as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Social Theory and Social Structure was a landmark publication in sociology by Robert K. Merton. It has been translated into close to 20 languages and is one of the most frequently cited texts in social sciences. It was first published in 1949, although revised editions of 1957 and 1968 are often cited. In 1998 the International Sociological Association listed this work as the third most important sociological book of the 20th century. The book introduced many important concepts in sociology, like: manifest and latent functions and dysfunctions, obliteration by incorporation, reference groups, self-fulfilling prophecy, middle-range theory and others


Book cover of Visual and Other Pleasures

Hanna Flint Author Of Strong Female Character

From my list on championing women in cinema.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a London-based critic, author, and host whose love affair with film began after seeing The Lion King in the cinema as a kid. I trained as a journalist because I wanted to talk about the world. Since then I’ve been covering film and culture for the likes of Empire Magazine, Time Out, and IGN. I co-host MTV Movies and the weekly film reviews podcast Fade to Black; co-founder of The First Film Club event series and podcast, and am a member of London's Critics' Circle. I'm a voice for gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in the entertainment industry and an advocate for MENA representation as a writer of Tunisian heritage.

Hanna's book list on championing women in cinema

Hanna Flint Why did Hanna love this book?

One of the most influential thinkers and writers on feminist film theory, Mulvey’s groundbreaking essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” is one of many that tackle the representation of women in art and culture and how these mediums might impede or aid the women’s movement.

Mulvey was a great resource for my own book in analysing the overt sexualisation of female characters on screen to cater to the so-called Male Gaze and misogynistic pleasures.

By L. Mulvey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Visual and Other Pleasures as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A new edition of Laura Mulvey's groundbreaking collection of essays, originally published in 1989. In an extensive introduction to this second edition, Mulvey looks back at the historical and personal contexts for her famous article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema , and reassesses her theories in the light of new technologies.


Book cover of Vilfredo Pareto: Sociological Writings
Book cover of Pareto on Policy
Book cover of Pareto's General Sociology

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,738

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in sociology, the Age of Enlightenment, and classical antiquity?

Sociology 151 books