Equal parts business biography, intellectual history, and sensationalism/scandalmongering (in the best sense of the terms)
It is easy to criticize Hugh Hefner for sometimes having poor judgment or questionable taste (though compared to his many imitators and competitors, he's a veritable paragon of these virtues). But in this book, equal parts business biography, intellectual history, and sensationalism/scandalmongering (but in the best sense of the terms, only in that he honestly tells about the more shocking aspects of his subject's life when they are relevant to the bigger picture), Steven Watts gives a fuller, more nuanced account of the man and his life, and his place in and influence on American culture. He begins with with the background leading up to the creation of Playboy magazine during the Eisenhower era, and follows Hefner's personal life and the development of the company through the succeeding decades. from early support for equal rights for blacks (the Playboy Clubs in New Orleans and Miami were the first such establishments in the South to be integrated) and women (the Playboy Foundation, the company's charitable/activist arm, assisted in the Roe v. Wade case), to battles against radical feminists in the late '70s and anti-obscenity zealots during the Reagan administration, and beyond. Interestingly, Watts discusses Ayn Rand's influence on Hefner---The Fountainhead was one of his favorite books during the period of Playboy's founding, and she was later interviewed in the magazine---but incorrectly labels her a conservative based on her support of the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign (failing to mention, for instance, her opposition to Ronald Reagan because of his association with religious conservatism and the so-called "Moral Majority"). Indeed, Hefner's twenty-five installment "The Playboy Philosophy" which ran in the magazine during the early '60s was obviously inspired by her ideas---in it, he advocated individualism, enlightened self-interest, and capitalism. Unfortunately, however, his grasp of Rand's philosophy was somewhat superficial---he had a much clearer idea of what he was against than what he was for. If he had understood and practiced these ideas more consistently, he might not have been so baffled when he came under attack from both sides of the political spectrum during the late '70s and throughout the '80s. Still, when Gloria Steinem, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, and Barbara Ehrenreich ally themselves with Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson against you, you know you must be doing something right. On the whole, Watts paints a portrait of a man who is surprisingly intellectual and principled, even ethical. He of course shows Hefner's influence on the sexual revolution ("Part of the sexual revolution is bringing rationality to sexuality," according to Hefner, but here again he was more clear on what he was against than what he was for), but more broadly on postwar American culture, with his emphasis on personal freedom, political freedom, and economic freedom. As Watts demonstrates, Playboy is not just about sex and crass materialism---it is about romance, class, and living well in general, with world-class literature and journalism in addition to (usually relatively) tasteful nude pictures of beautiful women. It might seem counterintuitive at first to think of Hefner as a representative of the American dream, when his own lifestyle is so far outside the norm of American life---but he, through his business enterprises, really did a lot to shape what the American dream has come to mean, and Watts places him in the tradition of the subjects of his two previous biographies, Henry Ford and Walt Disney, in tracing the development of American culture through the twentieth century.