Steven Watts is a historian and writer who has charted the sweeping evolution of American culture in a number of highlypraised books. His series of biographies of major figures ”Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie, Walt Disney, Hugh Hefner ”has explored the shaping of a modern valuesystem devoted to consumerism, selffulfillment, leisure, and personality. Two earlier books on the Early Republic era examined the shift from an older society of republican virtue to a 19thcentury Victorian era devoted to selfcontrol, individual character, and the selfmade man. Watts books have led to involvement in a number of media projects, including several films for PBS, the History Channel, and documentary venues in Germany and Brazil. He also has appeared in a variety of programs on CBS, NBC, CNBC, NPR, Fox, Fox News, CSpan, Bloomberg News, MSNBC, BBC, and Irish National Radio. He is currently a professor of history at the University of Missouri.