Congratulations to Liam Byrne for the publication of Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin: Their early political careers and the making of the modern Labor Party (Melbourne University Press, 2020). Before becoming the prime ministers who led Australia in moments of extraordinary crisis and transformation, John Curtin and James Scullin were two young working-class men who dreamt of changing their country for the better. Becoming John Curtin and James Scullin tells the tale of their intertwined early lives as both men became labour intellectuals and powerbrokers at the beginning of the twentieth century. It reveals the underappreciated role each man played in the events that defined the modern Australian Labor Party.