WASHINGTON’S MONUMENTS

Robert M. Poole’s history of Arlington National Cemetery, On Hallowed Ground (Walker, $28), intertwines the often poignant stories of some of the 300,000 soldiers, jurists, presidents, and scientists laid to rest there with America’s martial history since the Civil War. The site itself testifies to the nation’s war-torn past: once the family plantation of Robert E. Lee, it served as a Union headquarters after Lee switched his allegiance to the Confederacy. The 360-acre estate was also used as a haven for freed slaves and a burial ground for indigent soldiers before Secretary of War Stanton, adopting the idea from Union General Montgomery Meigs, officially established it as part of a national cemetery system. Poole, author of Explorers House and a contributing editor at Smithsonian, has produced a deeply felt and thoroughly researched book.

For the history buff, Dream House: The White House as an American Home (Acanthus, $75) is a distinctive addition to White House historiography. Ulysses Dietz and Sam Watters focus on how each successive presidential family has employed domestic architecture to make their temporary housing a home. However, when the Kennedys arrived, the authors believe, the White House became a “museum with hotel amenities, no longer reflecting the nation’s changing sensibilities in design.” By contrast, they write, Michelle Obama’s organic gardening, the first Presidential vegetable garden since the Depression, and family routines have once again made the White House an American home.