Roosevelt, the youngest President in history, created in those years what political scientists call the modern presidency. He was the wielder of the Big Stick, the builder of the Panama Canal, an avid conservationist, and the nemesis of the corporate trusts that threated to monopolize American business at the start of the century. Yet his presidency accounted for only seven and a half years of a busy life. TR was so much more: political maverick, civic reformer, Rough Rider, governor, cowboy, sportsman; naturalist, historian, man of letters, and defender of the American family.

The book includes many formal and informal depictions of Roosevelt, including photographs, sculpture, and paintings. There are also renderings of his family, some of his contemporaries such as Henry Cabot Lodge, Jacob Riis, William McKinley, J. Pierpont Morgan, and John Muir, and many cartoons and illustrations that appeared in newspapers, journals, and magazines of the time.