John Peter Cole (9 December 1928 – 1 April 2020)"Professor John Cole, 91: Popular, gentle geographer and writer on world poverty", ''The Times'', 30 May 2020
Retrieved 30 May 2020"Remembering our alumni - The University of Nottingham: Professor John Cole, Geography with Spanish", University of Nottingham
Retrieved 31 October 2021 was a British

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

. Cole was born in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. He graduated from the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

in 1950. He later returned there to join the staff of the Geography Department, rising to become professor of urban and

regional geography Regional geography is one of the major traditions of geography. It focuses on the interaction of different cultural and natural geofactors in a specific land or landscape, while its counterpart, systematic geography, concentrates on a specific geo ...

. He was

emeritus professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

of geography at the university. From 1957 he wrote or co-authored over 25 books on geography, including ''Geography of World Affairs'', first published in 1959. His work ran from school texts to academic papers, and he was an early adopter of computers in geographical studies. He was a visiting professor at the Universities of Washington, Columbia, Mexico, Valparaiso, Nanjing and Beijing. He retired in 1994. He died at his home in

Bramcote Bramcote (, ) is a suburban village and former civil parish in the Borough of Broxtowe, Broxtowe district of Nottinghamshire, England, between Stapleford, Nottinghamshire, Stapleford and Beeston, Nottinghamshire, Beeston. It is in the parliame ...

on 1 April 2020, aged 91. He had lived in this house since at least the 1970s, potentially longer. His wife was from

Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...

. She moved back to the

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

following his death.

Bibliography

*''Geography of World Affairs'' (1959, several later editions) *''Quantitative Geography: Techniques and Theories in Geography'' (with C. A. M. King) (1968) *''New Ways in Geography: A Guide for Teachers'' (with N. J. Beynon) (1969) *''Latin America: An Economic and Social Geography'' (1975) *''Situations in Human Geography: A Practical Approach'' (1978) *''Regional Inequality in Services and Purchasing Power in the USSR, 1940-1976'' (with M. E. Harrison) (1978) *''Peru, 1940-2000: Performance and Prospects'' (with P. M. Mather) (1978) *''The Development Gap: A Spatial Analysis of World Poverty and Inequality'' (1981) *''Geography of the Soviet Union'' (1984) *''China 1950-2000: Performance and Prospects'' (1985) *''Development and Underdevelopment: A Profile of the Third World'' (1987) *''Modern Soviet Economic Performance'' (with Trevor Buck) (1987) *''Geography of the World's Major Regions'' (1996) *''A Geography of the European Union'' (with Francis Cole) (1997)

References

1928 births 2020 deaths Academics of the University of Nottingham British geographers Australian emigrants to the United Kingdom {{geographer-stub