The Insurgents tells the inside story of the small group of soldier-scholars, led by Gen. David Petraeus, who plotted to revolutionize the oldest, stodgiest institution in America--the military. Working from secret documents, private emails, and interviews with more than one hundred key characters, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Fred Kaplan details how these men and women forged a community (a "cabal," some of them called it), manipulated the bureaucracy, and changed official policy.

This is a story of power, politics, ideas, and...