A military historian sheds light on the maverick thinkers who hatched outlandish plots and shaped warfare from WWI to Vietnam and beyond. During World War I, Oxford-trained archeologist Lawrence of Arabia used his knowledge of the Middle East to help organize the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. In this entertaining and insightful book, Jason Ridler profiles the intellectuals, outsiders, and eccentrics who followed in Lawrence's footsteps across the next hundred years of warfare-those who relied on creativity, curiosity, and outside-the-box thinking to shape battlefields from World War II and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan.

These men were Ivy Leaguers and Oxford scholars, anthropologists and archeologists. Among them were an ad executive, an international activist, a Peace Corps veteran, an émigré journalist (and former teenage member of the French Resistance), and a diplomat. These mavericks and oddballs-both men and women-were not always heralded or heeded, and sometimes they were hated. But they each challenged traditional military thought and helped win wars, secure peace, and change the face of modern military conflict.