Joseph Amato
Selected Bibliography
Mounier and Maritain: A French Catholic Understanding of the Modern World (1975)
Guilt and Gratitude: A History of the Origins of Modern Conscience (1982)
Death Book: Terrors, Consolations, Contradictions and Paradoxes (1985)
When Father and Son Conspire: A Minnesota Farm Murder (1988)
A New College on the Prairie: Southwest State University's First Twenty-Five Years, 1967–1992 (1991)
The Great Jerusalem Artichoke Circus (1993)
Golf Beats Us All (And So We Love It) (1997)
Bypass: A Memoir (2000)
Dust: A History of the Small and Invisible (2000)
Rethinking Home: The Case for Local History (2002)
On Foot: A Cultural History of Walking (2004)
Jacob’s Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History (2008)
Surfaces, A History (2013)
Buoyancies, A Ballast Master's Log (2014)
The Book of Twos: The Power of Contrasts, Polarities, and Contradictions (2015)
My Three Sicilies: Stories, Poems, and Histories (2016)
Everyday Life: How the Ordinary Became Extraordinary (2016)
Buffalo Man: Life of a Boy Giant on the Minnesota River (2018)
Joseph Amato (August 31, 1938-) moved to Minnesota in 1969, when he started teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University. He received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Rochester in 1970. In addition to founding SMSU’s History department, Amato taught a wide range of classes that focused on European culture, ethics, and social science. He is well-known on the state’s lecture circuit, and in 2003, he was recognized by the Minnesota Humanities Commission as a “Friend of the Humanities.” In addition to teaching, Amato started Crossings Press, which prints a bi-annual publication about southwestern Minnesota’s history.
Amato has written nonfiction, memoir, fiction, and poetry. He is best known for his books Rethinking Home: The Case for Local History, Dust: A History of the Small and Invisible, and Jacob’s Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History. He has won a Minnesota Humanities Prize for Literature and a Prairie Star Award for his writing. He has published three volumes of poetry, and in 2018, his first novel, Buffalo Man: Life of a Boy Giant on the Minnesota River, was published.