On Hallowed Ground opens with the long-delayed funeral of four servicemen, brought home for final honors at Arlington National Cemetery almost forty years after they disappeared in Vietnam. To understand how this tradition of extraordinary care for our war dead began, Robert Poole traces the founding of Arlington Cemetery on what had been the family plantation of Robert E. Lee. After resigning his commission in the U.S. Army, Lee left Arlington...

In "American Gun", the deadliest sniper in U.S. history tracks down and shoots the most important American firearms, from a flintlock rifle to a Colt revolver to the latest high-tech weapon he used as a SEAL. Chris Kyle uses these guns as a window on United States history, making the sweeping argument that the American story has been tied to and shaped by the gun.

What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? George Washington in the 1770s stood at the apex of Virginia society. Benjamin Franklin was more successful still, having risen from humble origins to world fame. John Adams revered the law. Yet all three men became rebels against the British Empire that fostered their success. Others in the same circle of family and friends chose differently-- and soon heard themselves denounced...

"Trapped in a forever war by 9/11, in Spiral Mark Danner describes a nation that has been altered in fundamental ways. President Bush declared a war of choice and without an exit plan, and President Obama has proven unable to take the country off what he has called its "permanent war footing." The War on Terror has led to fourteen years of armed conflict, the longest war in America's history. Al Qaeda, the organization that attacked us on 9/11, has...