Australia

1889–1959 ○ Died

Commander of the Australian 9th Division at the Siege of Tobruk and the Second Battle of El Alamein

Born in Ballarat, Victoria, he was a schoolteacher who enlisted as a private in the First World War, landed at Gallipoli and led the 33rd Infantry Battalion on the Western Front. Between the wars he worked for a shipping company while commanding Militia units. In 1941, at the head of the Australian 9th Division, he led the Australian and British garrison in the Siege of Tobruk, and he commanded the division again at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942. His men called him "Ming the Merciless". Back in Australia from 1943, he commanded II Corps in the New Guinea campaign and I Corps in the Borneo campaign in 1945.

Independent activity 1892–1952 ○ Natural causes

Australian-born sexologist who spread birth control in London and became a president of the World League for Sexual Reform

With Dora Russell he organised the World League for Sexual Reform’s London congress in 1929, and in 1930 became one of the League’s presidents.

A physician and sexologist born Norman Zions in Sydney. Moving to London in 1919, he built a successful gynaecological practice in Harley Street and spread contraception through a free birth-control clinic. He organised the World League for Sexual Reform’s London congress in 1929, became one of its presidents in 1930 and dissolved it in 1935. After the Second World War he founded the Sexual Reform Society, and he died in London in 1952.

1941–

Revisionist trailblazer who reconstructed Soviet social history 'from below'

'Nothing fails like failure, and for historians approaching the revolution's centenary the disappearance of the Soviet Union casts a pall.' ('What's Left?', LRB, 2017)

The Australian-born historian who led the revisionist school of Soviet studies. In the 1970s and 1980s, with works like Education and Social Mobility, The Russian Revolution, Stalin's Peasants, and Everyday Stalinism, she pioneered a 'history from below' that read the Soviet system through the eyes of workers, peasants, and city-dwellers rather than the state and its leaders. In her 2017 LRB essay 'What's Left?', she surveyed the centenary histories of the October Revolution and mapped the three dominant frameworks (the totalitarian model, revisionist social history, and the post-1991 consensus that the revolution was a 'historical dead end'), arguing that the revolution's path to Stalinism was the product of social dynamics, not inevitability, a stance that unsettled both Cold War orthodoxy and its Marxist critics.

1889–1959 ○ Died

Commander of the Australian 9th Division at the Siege of Tobruk and the Second Battle of El Alamein

Born in Ballarat, Victoria, he was a schoolteacher who enlisted as a private in the First World War, landed at Gallipoli and led the 33rd Infantry Battalion on the Western Front. Between the wars he worked for a shipping company while commanding Militia units. In 1941, at the head of the Australian 9th Division, he led the Australian and British garrison in the Siege of Tobruk, and he commanded the division again at the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942. His men called him "Ming the Merciless". Back in Australia from 1943, he commanded II Corps in the New Guinea campaign and I Corps in the Borneo campaign in 1945.

Independent activity 1892–1952 ○ Natural causes

Australian-born sexologist who spread birth control in London and became a president of the World League for Sexual Reform

With Dora Russell he organised the World League for Sexual Reform’s London congress in 1929, and in 1930 became one of the League’s presidents.

A physician and sexologist born Norman Zions in Sydney. Moving to London in 1919, he built a successful gynaecological practice in Harley Street and spread contraception through a free birth-control clinic. He organised the World League for Sexual Reform’s London congress in 1929, became one of its presidents in 1930 and dissolved it in 1935. After the Second World War he founded the Sexual Reform Society, and he died in London in 1952.

1941–

Revisionist trailblazer who reconstructed Soviet social history 'from below'

'Nothing fails like failure, and for historians approaching the revolution's centenary the disappearance of the Soviet Union casts a pall.' ('What's Left?', LRB, 2017)

The Australian-born historian who led the revisionist school of Soviet studies. In the 1970s and 1980s, with works like Education and Social Mobility, The Russian Revolution, Stalin's Peasants, and Everyday Stalinism, she pioneered a 'history from below' that read the Soviet system through the eyes of workers, peasants, and city-dwellers rather than the state and its leaders. In her 2017 LRB essay 'What's Left?', she surveyed the centenary histories of the October Revolution and mapped the three dominant frameworks (the totalitarian model, revisionist social history, and the post-1991 consensus that the revolution was a 'historical dead end'), arguing that the revolution's path to Stalinism was the product of social dynamics, not inevitability, a stance that unsettled both Cold War orthodoxy and its Marxist critics.