Books and Writings
Amato's publications, listed below, fall into four basic categories, European cultural and intellectual explorations; rural, regional, and local; family history and memoirs; and most recently poetry and fiction.
Cultural and Intellectual
Body: Vessel and Sea of Self, Crossing Press, 2023.
Self: One and Many, Crossing Press, 2023.
Everyday Life: How the Ordinary Became Extraordinary, London: Reaktion Press, August, 2016.
The Book of Twos, The Powers of Contrasts, Polarities, and Contradictions, Crossings Press, 2015
Surfaces, A History, University of California Press, 2013
On Foot: A Cultural History of Walking, New York University Press, November, 2004. Korean translation.
Dust: A History of the Small and Invisible. University of California Press, 2000, first choice non-fiction, Los Angeles Times; widely reviewed and translated into German, Italian, and Croatian; and a recent Italian translation, in “I Grandi Pensatori,” Bollati Boringhieri, 2012
Victims and Values: A History and Theory of Suffering. Praeger Press, 1990.
Guilt and Gratitude: A History of the Origins of Modern Conscience. Greenwood Press, 1982.
Ethics, Living or Dead? Portals Press/Venti Amati, 1982.
Mounier and Maritain: A French Catholic Understanding of the Modern World. University of Alabama Press, 1975, republished by Ave Maria Press, 2002.
Rural, Regional, and Local
"Reflections on Conservation on the Northern Plains: From Farm Field to Biosphere," in Conserving Conservation, ed. Anthony Amato, Augustana University Center for Western Studies Press, 2017.
Southwest Minnesota: A Place of Many Places, a collection of essays on towns, places, and architectures, Joseph Amato and David Pichaske, Crossings Press, 2007.
A Place Called Home: Writings on the Midwestern Small Town, anthology edited by Richard Davies, Joseph Amato and David Pichaske, University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Rethinking Home: The Case for Local History. University of California Press, published February 2002; It has been widely reviewed and featured at several regional and national conferences, most notably the joint national conference of the American Association of State and Local History and the National Council on Public History, Providence, RI, September 2003. For an hour interveiw with Amato on thinking and writing local and regional history, listen to Al Zambone's podcast, "Local History is Knowing Your Place." historicallythinking.org/episode49/
The Draining of the Great Oasis: An Environmental History of Murray County, Minnesota, ed. with Anthony Amato and Janet Timmerman. Crossings Press, 2001.
Southwest Minnesota: The Land and the People, edited with David Pichaske. Crossings Press, 2000.
Community of Strangers: Change, Turnover, Turbulence & the Transformation of a Midwestern Country Town, with John Radzilowski and assistance of John Meyer. Crossings Press, 1999.
To Call It Home: The New Immigrants of Southwestern Minnesota, with John Meyer, John Radzilowski, Donata DeBruyckere, and Anthony Amato. Crossings Press, 1996.
At the Headwaters, edited with Janet Timmerman. Minnesota Conservation Corps / Southwest State University Flood Recovery Project, 1995.
The Decline of Rural Minnesota, with John Meyer. Crossings Press, 1993.
Servants of the Land: God, Family, and Farm, The Trinity of Belgian Economic Folkways. Crossings Press, 1990.
A New College on the Prairie: Southwest State University's First Twenty-Five Years, 1967-1992. Crossings Press, 1991.
The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus. University of Minnesota Press, 1993, offered as an e-book in 2001.
When Father and Son Conspire: A Minnesota Farm Murder. Iowa State University Press, 1988; republished toExcel, 2000.
Countryside, Mirror of Ourselves. Crossings Press, 1980.
Family History and Memoirs
Coal Cousins: Rusyn and Sicilian Stories and Pennsylvania Anthracite History.Crossings Press, Spring, 2008.
Jacob's Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2008. For an hour interveiw with Amato suggesting that family history is a way to self-knowledge, listen to Al Zambone's podcast Thinking Historically http://historicallythinking.org/episode50/
Bypass: A Memoir. Purdue University Press, 2000.
Golf Beats Us All (And So We Love It), Johnson Books, Crossings Press, 1997.
Death Book. Ellis Press/ Venti Amati, 1985.
Poetry and Fiction
The Trinity of Grace, Legas, October 2020.
Towers of Aging, Crossings Press, January 2020.
Buffalo Man: Life of a Boy Giant on the Minnesota River, Crossings Press, September 2018.
Diagnostics, Poetics of Time, Bordighera Press, 2017.
My Three Sicilies: Stories, Poems, and Histories, Bordighera Press, 2016.
Buoyancies, A Ballast Master’s Log, Crossings Press/Spoon River Poetry, 2014.