The term war room, in political parlance, was coined by the team of U.S. strategists (specifically James Carville) who worked for Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in the early 1990s. In a nutshell, a war room is a political command centre where a candidate's strategists and media officers work to counter attacks by opponents while gathering research to mount an offensive in an ongoing, immediate fashion.

Warren Kinsella's The War Room profiles and analyzes some of the best political warriors and spinners around. He employs personal anecdotes, political wisdom culled from his extensive experience on Liberal Party federal and provincial election campaigns, historical examples from other Canadian and American campaigns, and generous amounts of humour to deliver a book about what it takes to survive challenges not just in politics but in any kind of business or non-governmental agency, whether it sells music, movies, cars, or computers, or raises money to preserve the environment, combat cancer, or save animals.