The canny but generous ‘racer’s racer’

Tom Wheatcroft, the millionaire motor racing and construction entrepreneur and owner the Donington Park circuit and the biggest collection of classic Grand Prix cars, has died, aged 87

Father of modern anthropology who hated travel

Claude Lévi-Strauss helped to define his discipline, preferring to produce rigorous theory in the jungles of academe over the anthropologists’ traditional reporting of life in real jungles

Jewish interrogator stunned by Nazis’ banality

Richard Sonnenfeldt, German-born chief interpreter at the Nuremberg war trials, came face to face with the perpetrators of the Third Reich’s ‘Final Solution’

A clubbable journalist with a passion for justice

Ludovic Kennedy wanted his obituaries to say: “He tried to do good, but may have failed.” Yet if the carriage of justice in Britain is now safer than it once was, it is thanks in part to him

Pioneer of class-action law and defender of civil rights

David Shapiro, who has died in London aged 81, covered most of the legal bases in his long career, from its beginnings as a defender of those targeted by McCarthy era purges to its middle passage as a pioneering class-action lawyer and its conclusion as an apostle of the concept of mediation in the English legal system

Banker who brought tactical savvy to M&A

Bruce Wasserstein, who has died aged 61, was the pre-eminent Wall Street dealmaker of the 1980s and a leading figure in transforming the business of advising companies on mergers and acquisitions

Pioneer who helped shape the private equity landscape

Lionel Pincus, a legend on Wall Street for his pioneering work in the venture capital and private equity industries, has died after a long battle with cancer

Retail ‘outsider’ who founded a global clothing empire

Gap co-founder Don Fisher’s ignorance of retail convention was perhaps his greatest strength

Leader of Warsaw’s Jewish uprising dies

Publisher who played leading role in German business

Ingenious surgeon who could see through his own body

Conservative wordsmith with wit and wisdom

Contrarian godfather to American neoconservatism

Writer who championed nuclear power

Punk rocker and beat poet whose fame began at just 16

Father of green revolution saved millions of lives

Advocate for the rights of the terminally ill

Lyricist who popularised heartfelt suburban values