Boot was born in 1969 in Moscow. His parents, both Russian Jews, later emigrated from the Soviet Union to Los Angeles, where he was raised. Boot earned a Bachelor's Degree in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 1991, and a Master's Degree in Diplomatic History from Yale University in 1992. He started his journalistic career writing columns for the Berkeley student newspaper The Daily Californian. He later stated that he believes he is the only conservative writer in that paper's history. Boot and his family currently live in New York City.

Boot is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard, a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and a regular contributor to other publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times. He blogs for Commentary Magazine on its page Contentions. He serves as a consultant to the U.S. military and as a regular lecturer at U.S. military institutions such as the Army War College and the Command and General Staff College.

Boot worked as a writer and editor for The Christian Science Monitor from 1992 to 1994. He moved to The Wall Street Journal for the next eight years. He wrote an investigative column called 'Rule of Law' about legal issues. After a short, four year career with the column, he rose to the head position of the Journal's editorial board.

In the middle of his career with the Journal, Boot wrote Out of Order, a critique of the American legal system published by Basic Books in 1998. Robert Bork wrote the foreword to the book. Boot argued that judges have usurped the roles properly held by legislators and other government officials by doing what he sees as making law rather than interpreting law. He highlighted the Supreme Court cases of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which he labeled the 'Magna Carta' of judicial activism, and Romer v. Evans (1996) as key examples, although he stated that he agreed with Brown's result while opposing its reasoning. The Washington Post praised the book, and The Washington Times also did so. Commentary ran a mixed review by Andrew C. McCarthy that described the book as a polemical "stream of vitriol" and supporting some of its recommendations while panning others.

Boot left the Journal in 2002, and he then joined the Council of Foreign Relations. He became a 'Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow' with the group. His writings with the Council appeared in several publications such as The New York Post, The Times, Financial Times, and International Herald Tribune in 2002.

Boot wrote Savage Wars of Peace, a study of small wars in American history, with Basic Books in 2002. The title came from Kipling's poem 'White Man's Burden'. James A. Russell in Journal of Cold War Studies criticized the book, saying that "Boot did none of the critical research, and thus the inferences he draws from his uncritical rendition of history are essentially meaningless." Benjamin Schwarz argued in The New York Times that Boot asked the U.S. military to do a "nearly impossible task", and he criticized the book as "unrevealing". Victor Davis Hanson in History News Network gave a positive review, saying that "Boot's well-written narrative is not only fascinating reading, but didactic as well". Robert M. Cassidy in Military Review labeled it "extraordinary".

Boot wrote numerous articles with the Council in 2003 and in 2004. The World Affairs Councils of America named Boot one of “the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy" in 2004. He also worked as member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in 2004.

Boot's writings with the Council continued to appear in the media in 2005 and in 2006. He published his most recent work War Made New, an analysis of revolutions in military technology since 1500, in 2006. The book's central thesis is that a military succeeds when it has the dynamic, forward-looking structures and administration in place to exploit new technologies. It concludes that the U.S. military may lose its edge if it does not become flatter, less bureaucratic, and more decentralized. The book received praise from Josiah Bunting III in The New York Times, who called it "unusual and magisterial", and criticism from Martin Sieffin in The American Conservative, who called it "remarkably superficial".

Boot wrote many more articles with the Council in 2007, and he received the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism that year. In an April 2007 episode of Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg, Boot stated that he "used to be a journalist" and that he currently views himself purely as a military historian. Boot served as a foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain in his 2008 United States presidential election bid. He stated in an editorial in World Affairs Journal that he saw strong parallels between Theodore Roosevelt and McCain. Boot continued to write for the Council in several publications in 2008 and 2009.

From May 14 to 17 2009, Boot attended a meeting of the Bilderberg group in Vouliagmeni, Greece.

Boot appeared on the PBS public affairs program Charlie Rose alongside war correspondent Julian Barnes of The Wall St. Journal in August 3, 2010. During Rose's interview, Boot praised President Obama's decision to appoint General David Petraeus as the ground commander of the Afghanistan campaign and he said that the conflict is winnable. He also mentioned that he has worked extensively as a civilian adviser to both Petraeus and his predecessor Stanley McCrystal, with fellow civilians Fred Kagan and Stephen Biddle.

In general, Boot considers himself to be a "natural contrarian". He credits his economic views to his parent's experiences in leaving the Soviet Union. He used to consider himself a social conservative, but he moderated his views over time. He opposes banning abortion and banning human cloning.

Boot vigorously supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2007 surge. During the Gaza war, Boot stated that Israel was morally justified to invade the Gaza Strip. However, he also stated that Israel might not be making the right tactical or strategic decision and called its overall situation a "quagmire". Boot also strongly supported NATO intervention to come to the aid of the Bosniaks in the Yugoslav wars, which he regarded as a just cause for humanitarian reasons. He has criticized President Ronald Reagan's decision to pull out of Lebanon after the barracks bombing as well as President Bill Clinton's decision to pull out of Somalia after the Battle of Mogadishu, viewing each as signs of American weakness and stepping stones towards the 9/11 attacks.

Boot dislikes the term "neoconservative" since he believes that it "has entirely lost its original meaning", but he does not mind being called one. The New York Times has called him "an influential neoconservative author and policy expert as well as a military historian." Christian Science Monitor has labeled him a "self-described neocon". Boot describes his line of foreign policy thinking as "Wilsonian". He has credited Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan as holding similar views. He has also stated that he believes in American exceptionalism.

Boot supports what he calls American imperialism based on nation building and the pursuit of spreading democracy across the non-Western world. He sees this as the only way to prevent another event like the 9/11 attacks. He has written, "[u]nlike 19th-century European colonialists, we would not aim to impose our rule permanently. Instead... occupation would be a temporary expedient to allow the people to get back on their feet". He advocates creating a formal Department of Peace alongside the current Department of Defense to promote democracy building abroad. He later stated in an interview that he thinks most Americans feel uncomfortable with being called an 'empire', but that they would be willing to act like one regardless. He has said that he believes the U.S. must act as a world police agency since "[t]here is nobody else out there".

Boot published a critique of paleoconservative historian Thomas E. Woods' book The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History in The Weekly Standard on February 2005. Boot labeled Woods' views as a 'Bizarro world' given Woods' support for nullification and the right of secession as well as his opposition to U.S. participation in World War I and II. Boot also blasted Woods for what he saw as ignoring African-Americans' struggle for civil rights and ignoring the fact that Clinton's intervention stopped a potential genocide. Woods responded in The American Conservative in March. He cited Thomas Jefferson in support for nullification and he accused Boot of anti-Southern prejudice. Woods also commented, "Since in my judgment Max Boot embodies everything that is wrong with modern conservatism, his opposition is about the best endorsement I could have asked for."

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's controversial 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy named Boot as a neo-conservative 'pundit' that represented the Israeli lobby's positions, notably within the Council of Foreign Relations. The authors argued that Boot and other figures dishonestly warp American foreign policy away from its national interest. Boot has called their ideas "crazy". He has also remarked that American activists could not keep President Bill Clinton from pressuring Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the Camp David summit, which he believes belies the idea of a powerful Israeli lobby.