<DIV>Often portrayed by past historians as the greatest guide and Indian fighter in the West, Kit Carson (1809–68) has become in recent years a historical pariah—a brutal murderer who betrayed the Navajos, an unwitting dupe of American expansion, and a racist. Many historians now question both his reputation and his place in the pantheon of American heroes. In <I>Kit Carson and the Indians</I>, Tom Dunlay urges us to reconsider Carson yet again. To Dunlay, Carson was simply a man of the nineteenth century whose racial views and actions were much like those of his contemporaries.</DIV>