When George W. Bush campaigned for the White House, he was such a novice in foreign policy that he couldn't name the president of Pakistan. But he was advised by a group that called themselves the Vulcans—a group of men and one woman with long and shared experience in government, dating back to the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and first Bush administrations. After returning to power in 2001, the Vulcans—including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, and Condoleeza Rice—were widely expected to restore U.S. foreign policy to what it had been in past Republican administrations. Instead, they put America on an entirely new course, adopting a far-reaching set of ideas and policies that changed the world and America's role in it.

In this revelatory and newsworthy volume, James Mann narrates the hidden story of these six history makers, their early careers and rise to power, the interactions and underlying tensions among them, their visions, and their roles in the current administration. Along the way, he offers a wealth of new information (about how Rumsfeld schemed in the Nixon White House, how Cheney toiled as Rumsfeld's doorkeeper, how Wolfowitz first warned of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East in the 1960s) to complete a remarkable look at George W. Bush's inner circle.