Robert Watson

Robert Watson is an award-winning author, professor, historian, and analyst for numerous media outlets. He has published over forty books on history and politics, five works of fiction, and hundreds of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and reference essays. He also serves as the series editor for the long-running scholarly book anthology on the American presidency published by the State University of New York and as the editor of two popular multi-volume encyclopedia sets – The American Presidents and American First Ladies – which are currently in their fourth and third editions, respectively. Several of his books have won national and international book awards and been featured at major literary festivals and on C-SPAN.

Watson has been the editor or a board member for several scholarly journals, has served on the boards of local non-profit organizations as well as the Harry Truman Foundation, the Calvin Coolidge Foundation, and George McGovern Library and Center for Public Service, co-convened a half-dozen national conferences on the American presidency, and was the co-founder of the annual Truman Legacy Symposium which is held at the Harry S. Truman Little White House and sponsored by the Truman Presidential Library.

As an analyst, he has been interviewed thousands of times by media outlets including CNN, MSNBC, USA Today, The New York Times, NPR, and the BBC, and has appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, C-SPAN, Book TV, The Washington Journal, Voice of America, and the debut program for American History TV. He has also served as the political analyst for ABC Radio in Australia, RTE One Public Radio in Ireland, WIOD 610 AM in Florida, and WPTV 5 NBC in Florida, and was a long-time Sunday columnist for the Sun-Sentinel newspaper. He has also helped research, write, and serve as an on-camera expert for numerous historical documentaries and TV series on such networks as Discovery, Science, National Geographic, History, Fuse, and more.

Watson has served as a visiting scholar or lecturer with many organizations including the Truman Presidential Library, Gerald Ford Presidential Museum, Illinois Holocaust Museum, Smithsonian Institution, National Archives, Pentagon, Fraunces Tavern Museum, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Museum of the American Revolution, Truman Little White House, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, James Madison’s Montpelier, Gettysburg National Battlefield, the National Civil War Museum, American Civil War Museum, American Revolution Institute, Andersonville National Historic Site, US Capitol Historical Society, New York Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the US Military Academy at West Point, and has received a number of awards for his community service, contributions to the study of the presidency, the civic and history programs he offers schools, and teaching excellence, including several “Professor of the Year” awards.

Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Watson attended public schools in nearby Hershey, and was educated at Virginia Tech, where he was a member of the football and track teams. Robert resides in Boca Raton with his children Alexander and Isabella. He serves as Distinguished Professor of American History, Avron Fogelman Eminent Research Professor, and Assistant Director of the Center for Citizenship & Civility at Lynn University and as Senior Fellow at the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship