Background

Max Boot was born on September 12, 1969, in Moscow, Russian. He is the son of Alexander Boot and Penelope Blackie. His parents, both Russian Jews, emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1976 and moved to Los Angeles, where he was raised.

Education

Boot received a bachelor’s degree in history, with high honors, from the University of California, Berkeley in 1991, and a master’s degree in history from Yale University in 1992.

Career

After the graduation, Max worked as a writer and editor at the Christian Science Monitor for a couple of years and then at the Wall Street Journal for eight years. Boot left the Journal in 2002 to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in National Security Studies

Boot was a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2007 - 2008, Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2011 - 2012, and Marco Rubio’s campaign in 2015 - 2016. He served as an adviser to United Staes commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has lectured on behalf of the US State Department and at many military institutions, including the Army, Navy and Air War Colleges, the Australian Defense College, the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School, West Point and the Naval Academy.

In more recent years, Boot has been a columnist for Foreign Policy, a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times, a member of the USA Today board of contributors, and a regular contributor to many other publications including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. He serves on the boards of Intelligence Squared US and the Renew Democracy Initiative.

Apart from his job, Max is a regular speaker and guest on radio and TV news programs and also writes articles based on the presidency of Donald Trump.

Boot even has five book credits to his name: "Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present," "The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power," "War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today." His latest book - “The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right" - was released in October 2018 by Norton/Liveright. It was selected as one of the notable books of the year by The Washington Post. His previous book, "The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam," came out in January 2018 and became a New York Times bestseller. It was named one of the best biographies of the year by Amazon and praised as an “epic and elegant biography” by the Wall Street Journal.

Achievements

• Boot was named one of America’s “Great Immigrants” by the Carnegie Corporation in 2018 and one of the 50 most influential Jewish Americans by the Forward newspaper. In 2004, he was named by the World Affairs Councils of America as one of “the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy.”

Works

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• book

  • War Made New: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World

    (A monumental, groundbreaking work, now in paperback, that...)

    2006
  • The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right

    (A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year Warning that t...)

    2018
  • The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam

    (In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA oper...)

    2018
  • Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present 2013
  • The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power 2014

Politics

Boot considers himself to be a "natural contrarian". He identifies as a conservative, once joking that "I grew up in the 1980s, when conservatism was cool". He is in favor of limited government at home and American leadership abroad. He once described his ideas as "American might to promote American ideals." He strongly opposed Trump's presidential candidacy in 2016 and has been highly critical of the Republican Party. Boot endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 United States presidential election.

Views

Quotations: "As media scramble to figure out Trump's evolving position on immigration, remember he cares 'only' about feeding his ego. Policy irrelevant."

Connections

Max is Married and has three children, Victoria, Abigail, and William. He likes to keep information about his family away from the limelight and lives with his family in the New York area.

Father:

Alexander Boot

Mother:

Penelope Blackie

Daughter:

Victoria Boot

Daughter:

Abigail Boot

Son:

William Boot

References

• Contemporary Authors A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields
  2008