Thy Will Be Done

"I pass the proverbial baton to John Garrison Marks, who finishes what I started in this fascinating and frustrating look at how we remember George Washington. Of all his impressive titles, he held 'master' the longest, and it was arguably the key to his success-and our own. But for the last 250 years, Americans have done their best to ignore that reality in favor of a more fashionable, palatable one. In the process, we've lost sight of him, and of ourselves. The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence offers us a unique chance to set the record straight-because if we don't try, it may just be our last."-Alexis Coe, New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington "Impressive in chronological scope, range of sources, and methodology. Few historians work as skillfully as John Garrison?Marks does in his sensitive, primarily archival reconstruction of the early history of the people freed through Washington's will and the primarily oral history of contemporary interpretation of enslavement at Mount Vernon."-Andrew M. Schocket, author of Fighting over the Founders: How We Remember the American Revolution "An engaging and nuanced chronicle of the legacy of George Washington and slavery over the past 250 years. Given increasingly polarized debates about how to interpret our country's history, Thy Will Be Done is a vital contribution to understanding our national history and memory."-Cassandra A. Good, author of First Family: George Washington's Heirs and the Making of America