Krishan Kumar (born 1942 in Trinidad and Tobago)[1] is a British sociologist who is currently William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia.
He then worked as a lecturer at the University of Kent from 1967, where he also studied for a PhD, and had a spell as a producer for the talks and documentaries department of the BBC.
[2] Kumar remained at Kent, attaining the position of Professor of Social and Political Thought, until his appointment at Virginia in 1996.
[3] Kumar's publications include Prophecy and Progress: The Sociology of Industrial and Post-Industrial Society (Allen Lane, 1978), Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times (Basil Blackwell, 1987), The Rise of Modern Society: Aspects of the Social and Political Development of the West (Basil Blackwell, 1988), Utopianism (Open University Press, 1991), 1989: Revolutionary Ideas and Ideals (University of Minnesota Press, 2001) and The Making of English National Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
[2] The latter was described by Bernard Crick as a "scholarly masterpiece" and "the deepest and best reflection so far by a fine sociologist and an intellectual historian".