PUBLICATIONS
October 2000 Issue
The Geographical Review
October 2000, Vol. 90 (4), pp. 629-635
OSKAR H. K. SPATE, 1911-2000
DAVID HOOSON
ABSTRACT:
Oskar Spate, who died on 29 May 2000 in Canberra, Australia, was one of the
greatest geographical scholars of the twentieth century. Humanist to the core, equally
at home in history and literature, he was also much in demand as a problem solver
in public policy in various parts of the world. His erudition, profound and wideranging,
combined meticulous command of the relevant facts and statistics with a
soaring ability to engage universal, philosophical, and penetrating questions of land
and life throughout the ages and across the world. His prose was anything but prosaic;
it was vivid, allusive, and sprinkled with humor.
Oskar Spate, who died on 29 May 2000 in Canberra, Australia, was one of the greatest geographical scholars of the twentieth century. Humanist to the core, equally at home in history and literature, he was also much in demand as a problem solver in public policy in various parts of the world. His erudition, profound and wideranging, combined meticulous command of the relevant facts and statistics with a soaring ability to engage universal, philosophical, and penetrating questions of land and life throughout the ages and across the world. His prose was anything but prosaic; it was vivid, allusive, and sprinkled with humor.