‘First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung, (Unelected) People Who Shaped Our Presidents’

A lawyer by training, Gary Ginsberg has spent his professional career at the intersection of media, politics, and law. He worked for the Clinton administration, was a senior editor and counsel at the political magazine George, and then spent the next two decades in executive positions in media and technology at News Corporation, Time Warner and SoftBank. He has published pieces in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and was an on-air political contributor in the early days of MSNBC. He lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.

Steven Gillon is a nonresident senior fellow at the Miller Center and the scholar-in-residence at the History Channel and professor of history at the University of Oklahoma. Gillon received his BA in history from Widener University, where he graduated summa cum laude with honors in history. He received the faculty prize for maintaining the highest undergraduate GPA. He went on to earn his MA and PhD in American civilization from Brown University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Then Gillon spent nine years teaching history at Yale University, where he won the prestigious DeVane Medal for outstanding undergraduate teaching.