| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 36.1

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 36.1 | The History Cooperative

*Kit Carson and His Three Wives: A Family History.* By Marc Simmons. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003. x + 195 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95.)
Marc Simmons knows more about Kit Carson than anyone else. He has been accumulating and pondering material for decades, much of it obscure sources no one else has seen. Simmons has absorbed the life and the times and places so deeply that he is a master of first-hand research and informed speculation. This slim volume, an outgrowth of one of the University of New Mexico's Calvin Horn Lectures, demonstrates the depth of his knowledge, his command of both primary and secondary sources, and his skill at filling the gaps with convincing conjecture.	1
Simmons here tackles perhaps the most elusive facet of Kit Carson's life: his marriages. Wives did not count for much in establishing a man's place in the mountain man fraternity or in Hispanic New Mexico, yet Carson cannot be fully understood without reference to the influence of these women.	2
Simmons not only makes full use of the primary sources, but assesses the theories of other biographers. A secondary theme, then, is the historiography of Carson and his wives. A third major theme is Carson himself. For pages at a time, the text follows Carson without mention of his wives.	. . .

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