Jean Gottmann

About Jean Gottmann

Who is it?: Geographer
Birth Day: October 19, 1923
Birth Place: Kharkov, Ukraine, Russian Empire, French
Died On: February 28, 1994
Birth Sign: Scorpio

Jean Gottmann Net Worth

Jean Gottmann was born on October 19, 1923 in Kharkov, Ukraine, Russian Empire, French, is Geographer. Jean Gottmann was an exceptional French geographer most reputed for his consequential study of the urban region of the Northeast Megalopolis (also referred as Boston–Washington Corridor). The term, ‘megalopolis’ was coined by him to describe the upsurge of urban development in the zone stretching from Boston to Washington DC. He was an unusual geographer, who was aware of the global advancements as also the influence of English geographers. While defending geographical tradition, he also made efforts to modernize it and eliminate the theoretical and methodological flaws associated with it. His work on human geography encompassed the historical, political, urban, regional and economic sub-fields. The specific regions that he concentrated his work on encompassed France, United States, Japan, Israel and the Mediterranean. He was a prolific writer and his writings included subjects from capitals to central cities and urban development both from political and spatial point of views. His most remarkable works include ‘Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States ‘, ‘A Geography of Europe’ and ‘Centre and Periphery: Spatial Variation in Politics’. The ‘American Geographical Society’ awarded him an Honorary Fellowship in 1956 and the ‘Charles P. Daly Medal’ in 1964. He remained a fellow of the ‘British Academy’ and the ‘American Academy of Arts and Sciences’. He was also awarded the ‘Victoria Medal’ by the ‘Royal Geographical Society’ in 1980.
Jean Gottmann is a member of Intellectuals & Academics

💰 Net worth: Under Review

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Awards and nominations:

Gottmann was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Geographical Society in 1956, and its Charles P. Daly Medal in 1964. In 1980 he received the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He also was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy.

Biography/Timeline

1918

Gottmann was born in Kharkov, Ukraine, Russian Empire. He was the only child of prosperous Jewish parents, Elie Gottmann and Sonia-Fanny Ettinger, who were killed in February 1918, following the Russian Revolution of 1917. He was de facto adopted by his aunt, Emily Gottmann and uncle, Michel Berchin, and escaped with them to Paris in 1921 via Constantinople.

1937

Gottmann started out as a research assistant in economic geography at the Sorbonne (1937–41) under the guidance of Albert Demangeon, but was forced to leave his post with the Nazi invasion of France and the 1940 Statute of Jews which banned him from public employment. He found refuge in the United States, where he received a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship to attend the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, in the seminar of Edward M. Earle. During the war, he contributed also to the U.S. effort by consulting for the Board of Economic Warfare in Washington and other agencies; he also joined La France Libre and the exiled French academic community teaching at the New School for Social Research. Isaiah Bowman hired him as a non-tenured professor at his new institute of geography of the Johns Hopkins University (1943–48). In 1945 he returned to France to work for the French Ministry of the Economy, and he also spent two years as Director of research at the United Nations (1946–47).

1953

After the war, he started to commute between France and the United States in an effort to explain America's human geography to the French public and Europe's to the American. His multicultural perspective allowed him to get a grant from Paul Mellon to produce the first regional study of Virginia (1953–55) and financial support from The Century Foundation to study the megalopolis of the North-Eastern seaboard of the United States, which soon became a paradigm in urban geography and planning to define polinuclear global city-regions.

1956

Gottmann was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Geographical Society in 1956, and its Charles P. Daly Medal in 1964. In 1980 he received the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. He also was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy.

1957

In 1957 he married Bernice Adelson. In 1961, he was invited to join the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris by Fernand Braudel, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Alex Andre Koyré and in 1968 became Professor of Geography and Head of Department at the School of Geography at the University of Oxford (1968–1983). After retiring as emeritus professor he remained in Oxford until the end of his life.