Richard E. Neustadt was born in 1919 and earned his PhD at Harvard University in 1951. He began the program prior to accepting a commission in World War II. Before returning to Harvard, he worked with the federal Bureau of the Budget, and in 1950 he was named a special assistant to President Harry Truman. Following the election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Neustadt entered academia and published the first edition of Presidential Power in 1960. The book cemented his reputation as a foremost thinker about the presidency’s power in the United States. Presidents apparently found a particular utility in his perspective and advice. Thereafter, Neustadt worked with John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. In 1990, by adding several reflective essays to round out and update the original edition, Neustadt published Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents to much praise. He died in 2003.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) was the 32nd president of the United States. Building upon a career of public service, including time spent as a New York state senator and the assistant secretary of the US Navy, Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1933. This was during the height of the Great Depression, which Roosevelt enacted the New Deal policies to combat.