Americans are divided over most things and the past is no different.  We disagree about whether to celebrate or question the past.  We’re at odds over whether history indoctrinates or educates and whether young minds are harmed or helped by exposure to the complexity of the past.  Historian John Garrison Marks argues that the real problem is that Americans dislike ambiguity.  There is no better example of this dilemma than George Washington.  Responsible for the creation of a new American political order based on the ideals of democracy, liberty, and equality, Washington was to his dying day a slave holder.  He was a supporter of gradual emancipation and freed his own slaves in his last will and testament but he never took a public stand against slavery during his lifetime.  How we remember George Washington reveals much about how we understand ourselves and what it means to be American.  A conversation with John Garrison Marks about his book, Thy Will Be Done: George Washington’s Legacy of Slavery and the Struggle Over American Memory, in this episode of the Realms of Memory podcast.