"Charles Ponce de Leon manages in this concise, probing, and extremely readable book on Elvis to accomplish what all historical biographers aspire to: to illuminate the man, the times, and the important relationship between the two. The reader is as fortunate as Elvis." --Lizabeth Cohen, author of "A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America " "This smart and engaging biography is the first to understand Elvis as a key figure in the history of recent America. Instead of an icon, both worshipped and mocked, Ponce de Leon reveals a man pulled under by the same celebrity culture that had made him." --Michael Kazin, author of "A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan " Praise for "Self Exposure: Human-Interest Journalism and the Emergence of Celebrity in America, 1890-1940": "A fascinating contribution to one of the most important developments of modern America. One has only to think for a moment about contemporary culture to wish to know where our obsessions with celebrity come from and, more profoundly, what impact celebrating celebrity has had on our civilization."-James B. Gilbert, University of Maryland at College Park "Self-Exposure fills an important gap in historical scholarship, providing the first sustained consideration of how the notion of celebrity status emerged from the late nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth.

It should appeal to those interested in how journalists shaped American culture and the emergence of celebrities."-Daniel Horowitz, Smith College.