Keith Taylor (political scientist)

Keith Taylor (25 March 1949 - 3 January 2006) was a British political scientist who was an authority on the politics of Utopian socialism, about which he wrote and convened an academic seminar in the 1980s when the area was of little academic interest in Britain.

[1] He was an authority on the politics of Utopian socialism and in the early 1980s convened a study group on Utopian thought when the area was of little academic interest in Britain.

[2] His 1982 book, The political ideas of Utopian socialists, is still regarded as one of the key modern works on the topic.

His later book with Barbara Goodwin, The politics of Utopia: A study in theory and practice (1983), looked at the significance of Utopias for political theory and practice[3] and argued that the political function of Utopias was to imaginatively transcend "the ubiquitous, seemingly unassailable present.

[1] In January 2000, Taylor founded Kidney Cancer UK, a support organisation for kidney cancer patients and their carers and the first such organisation in Britain.