The three volumes of <I>The Accursed Share </i>address what Georges Bataille sees as the paradox of utility: namely, if being useful means serving a further end, then the ultimate end of utility can only be uselessness. The first volume of <I>The Accursed Share, </i>the only one published before Bataille's death, treated this paradox in economic terms, showing that &quot;it is not necessity but its contrary, luxury, that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problems.&quot;<br /><br />In the second and third volumes, <I>The History of Eroticism </i>and <I>Sovereignty, </i>Bataille explores the same paradox of utility from an anthropological and an ethical perspective, respectively. <I>The History of Eroticism </i>analyzes the fears and fascination, the prohibitions and transgressions attached to the realm of eroticism as so many expressions of the &quot;uselessness&quot; of erotic life. In the third volume, Batille raises the ethical problems of sovereignty, of &quot;the independence of man relative to useful ends.&quot;