Alastair Dougal
Couper,
1931-2018; David Lowenthal,
1923-2018
During
the past fortnight, Geography has lost two of its most storied and influential
practitioners.
Alastair Couper was Professor of
Maritime Studies at the University of Cardiff, Wales, where he was Director of
the Seafarers International Research Centre. He worked fearlessly to expose “theft,
slavery and violence at sea” [Fishers and
Plunderers, 2015; Voyages of Abuse,
1999]. Ten years at sea as a master mariner was his prelude to academia, the
World Maritime University (Malmö, Sweden), and the National Maritime Museum in
Greenwich. Alastair’s maritime history of the Pacific peoples originated in his
Ph.D. thesis at ANU.
David Lowenthal was Professor of
Geography at University College London, following many years at the American
Geographical Society in New York. He received the British Academy Medal in 2016
for The Past Is a Foreign Country—Revisited,
honouring “a landmark academic achievement which has transformed understanding
in the humanities and social sciences.” His deeply insightful works have ranged
from the West Indies and George Perkins Marsh through heritage issues to
landscape interpretation—including Australia. Few of us will die at 95, as
David did, while proof-reading his last book, Quest for the Unity of Knowledge.
The
saddest of farewells to you both. May we forge on in your wake, with fair winds
and a following sea.