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 state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. He graduated from the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

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

urban Urban means "related to a city". In that sense, the term may refer to: * Urban area, geographical area distinct from rural areas * Urban culture, the culture of towns and cities Urban may also refer to: General * Urban (name), a list of people ...

and

regional geography Regional geography is a major branch 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 geofactor at the ...

. He was

emeritus professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

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 in the Broxtowe district of Nottinghamshire, England, between Stapleford and Beeston. It is in Broxtowe parliamentary constituency. The main Nottingham–Derby road today is the A52, Brian Clough Way. Nearby ...

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 state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

. She moved back to the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

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