Books by Andrew M. Koch

This book examines the evolution of materialism within the continental tradition in philosophy. After building a model of materialism, it shows how the writings of Kant, Marx, Weber, and Nietzsche have contributed to a materialist understanding of culture and history.

In Knowledge and Social Construction Andrew Koch asks: how can we know the absolute best path through politics toward a better society? We can't. However, if our claims to social knowledge are more hypothetical in nature than absolute the resultant society will be more open.

Examines the political possibilities emerging with poststructuralist epistemology. Beginning with the premises for the construction of knowledge claims, this work explores the dimensions of materialism, democracy, power, leftist politics, and other themes emerging from the twentieth century philosophic movement.

Well into the twenty-first century, the United States remains one of the most highly religious industrial democracies on earth. Recent Gallup surveys suggest that 76 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is divinely inspired or the direct word of God. In Medieval America, Andrew M Koch and Paul H. Gates, Jr. offer a thoughtful examination of how this strong religious feeling, coupled with Christian doctrine, affects American political debates and collective practices and surveying the direct and indirect influence of religion and faith on American political culture. Koch and Gates open a more critical dialogue on the political influence of religion in American politics, showing that people's faith shapes their political views and the policies they support. Even with secular structures and processes, a democratic regime will reflect the belief patterns distributed among the public. Delving into a perspicacious analysis of the religious components in current practices in education, the treatment of political symbols, crime and punishment, the human body, and democratic politics, they contend that promoting and maintaining a free, open, and tolerant society requires the necessary limitation of religious influence in the domains of law and policy. Readers interested in religion and politics will find much to discuss in this incisive exploration of Christian beliefs and their impact on American political discourse.

Drawing on the genealogical tradition developed by Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault,Democracy and Domination argues that from the time of Ancient Greece to the present, the collective and centralizing aspects of power have been expanding in the Western world. Modern democracy should be seen as a system of domination that assists in the coordination and expansion of collective power.

Alienation, as a theme, deeply pervaded both the work and life of Max Weber, one of the pillars of modern sociology. In this book, the author analyzes the genesis of the concept of alienation and works to recreate the context in which Weber understood alienation in both the intellectual and lived sense.