J. Richard Peet (born 16 April 1940 in Southport, England) is a retired professor of human geography at the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University in Worcester MA, USA. Peet received a BSc (Economics) from the London School of Economics, an M.A. from the University of British Columbia, and moved to the USA in the mid-1960s to complete a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley. He began teaching at Clark University shortly after completing his PhD from Berkeley, remained there for over 50 years, with secondments in Australia, Sweden and New Zealand. He retired in 2019, when 79 years old.
Scholarly contributions Professor Peet’s areas of research include Critique of Neo-Liberal Development Theory; Globalization, Global Governance Institutions; Economic Policy, Financial Crisis; Geography of power; Global political ecology; Economic Policy in India; Global political ecology; Consciousness, rationality and ideology; semiotics; and philosophy, theory, geographic though. Peet’s doctoral research applied von Thunen’s theories to the global expansion of commercial agriculture. However much of his later work was inspired by living in the racially and socially charged situation in America during the 1960s. His early books and articles helped define the field of radical and critical geography. Peet has written extensively on a variety of topics. Along with other authors such as David Harvey he was part of a movement of radical geographers that have drawn on Marxist theory and techniques. He uses the techniques of political economy, looking for interconnections and processes at a variety of scales and over time. Peet believed that geography must do more than simply provide explanations and descriptions of problems studied, but rather attempt to propose alternatives. His political economy focus was critiqued by post-modern and post-capitalist thinkers. During the 1980s and 1990s Peet's focus shifted to the politics and ecology of international development, particularly the systematic underdevelopment of nations peripheral to the capitalist west. His work is critical of neo-liberal development theory and global governance institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. He was a supporter of the socialist revolution in Grenada, working there prior to the US invasion in 1983. Peet published what he called his last book, a short one entitled Global Finance Capitalism in 2021.
Journal editing Peet founded the radical journal of geography, Antipode at Clark University, in 1970 with Ben Wisner and other radical graduate students. It is now one of the top 10 journals in the anglophone world of geography, but until 1978 it was housed in a basement room in the Graduate School of Geography, and until the late 70s, mimeographed from typewritten pages stapled by hand, then distributed by mail to subscribers. Peet was an editor until 1985, when the journal was sold to Blackwell, which later became Wiley. He co-edited Economic Geography from 1992-1998. In 2008 he founded a new independent journal, Human Geography: a new radical journal, published by the independent Institute of Human Geography. As subscriptions picked up, a fund was established to support radical and activist geographical projects worldwide. Human Geography continues to be independently owned by the non-profit Institute of Human Geography and is published by SAGE. Following Peet's original intentions, it continues to fund and support radical and activist geographical projects worldwide.
Appointments 1967-1972 Assistant Professor, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 1972-1983 Associate Professor, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 1983–2019 Professor, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts
Other appointments 1978-1980 Senior Research Fellow, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra 1982-1985 Senior Research Fellow, Beijer Institute, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1998 Visiting Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa 2004 and 2012 Visiting Erskine Fellow, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Honours Lifetime Achievement Award, American Association of Geographers, 2018
Personal Peet was married twice, latterly to geographer Elaine Hartwick (1962-2022). He had children with her and two sons from his previous marriage. As of 2024, he lives in central Massachusetts.
Publications
Books Global Finance Capitalism. Institute of Human Geography, 2021. Global Political Ecology edited with Paul Robbins and Michael Watts, London: Routledge 2010 India’s New Economic Policy edited by Waquar Ahmed, Amitabh Kundu and Richad Peet, London: Routledge 2010 Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO re-written and updated, London: Zed Press, 2009 Theories of Development: Arguments, Contentions, Alternatives with Elaine Hartwick, New York: Guilford Press 2009 Geography of Power: The Making of Global Economic Policy, London: Zed Press, 2007. Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank, and WTO Zed Press, 2003. Theories of Development with Elaine Hartwick, Guilford, 1999, 2002. Modern Geographical Thought Blackwell, 1998. Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements Archived 2018-04-02 at the Wayback Machine (edited with Michael Watts) Routledge, 1996; second revised edition, 2004. Global Capitalism: Theories of Societal Development Routledge: 1991. New Models in Geography: The Political Economy Approach Archived 2018-04-02 at the Wayback Machine (2 Volumes) edited with Nigel Thrift. Unwin Hyman, 1989. An Introduction to Marxist Theories of Underdevelopment: Papers from the Workshop on Marxist Theories of Underdevelopment, edited. Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia, 19–22 November 1979 International Capitalism and Industrial Restructuring: a critical analysis. Allen & Unwin. 1987. Radical Geography: Alternative Viewpoints on Contemporary Social Issues edited. Maaroufa Press, 1977.
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