On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery Review

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On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery ReviewThis history of the Arlington National Cemetery kept me thoroughly completely engaged throughout. An chronological accounting of our nation's cemetery through individual stories of the people who were buried there, it made an great companion to the more thematically structured and excellent Civil War history by Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, which I had previously completed.
Poole's account details the complex political and bureaucratic processes around the selection of unknown soldiers, and the developing culture of memorial to war dead as well as the role of the cemetery in attempting to heal internal national divisions (Civil War, Vietnam "war"). His detailing of how Robert E Lee's wife's family plantation was slowly appropriated alone is well worth the reading time. I also greatly appreciated how Poole's highlighting the design--land use, vistas, monuments, tombstones, rituals etc--deftly demonstrates that attention to detail reinforces beliefs and values. Examples include the categorization--by war, race and sex--of people buried, to a soldier's description of the practice needed folding a flag apparent simplicity of folding the flag at a state funeral.
There many things and further questions (areas of inquiry) that came to my mind as I read this book. Overall areas that left me intrigued are: the discipline of architecture's relationship to war memorials (I know that Maya Lin, while at Yale, designed her winning design for an architecture class on war memorials); 2) any possible ramifications of the flattening of army hierarchy through the elimination of burial practice for enlisted men and officers; (as of 2009, all people, officer or enlisted, killed in action are granted full-honors ceremonies); and 4) the future of practice of the Unknowns and its relationship to accountability...
Fascinating book. Highly recommended for the content as well as the writing and as a way to approach history writing--not through the history of a single person or an organization, but around the changing, physical manifestation of intangible beliefs and values . I am going to seek out Robert Poole's other book, Explorers House: National Geographic and the World It Made, with great confidence that it will be as illuminating as this.
Note: I won this book in the Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.On Hallowed Ground: The Story of Arlington National Cemetery Overview

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