Charles L. Ponce de Leon

Charles L. Ponce de Leon was born and raised in Palo Alto, California, and received his BA from UC Santa Barbara, where he was a college journalist and worked in community radio.  He received his Ph.D. in United States History from Rutgers University, and has taught at Princeton University, Purchase College, and California State University, Long Beach, where he is a Professor of History and American Studies.

He is a specialist in U.S. cultural and intellectual history.  His fields of expertise include mass media and the commercial culture industries, American intellectual life, and modern U.S. political culture.  He has written three previous books: Self-Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890-1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Fortunate Son: The Life of Elvis Presley (Hill and Wang, 2006); and That’s the Way It Is: A History of Television News in America (University of Chicago Press, 2015).