Come meet author Andrew Lawler as he discusses his book "The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke."

A sweeping account of America's oldest unsolved mystery, THE SECRET TOKEN: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke (Doubleday; 6/5/2018) by Andrew Lawler, the author of Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?, tells the riveting tale of the disappearance of America’s first settlers, and examines how the Lost Colony has come to haunt our national consciousness.

In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina to establish the first English settlement in the New World. But when the new colony's leader returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers had vanished, leaving behind only a single clue - a “secret token” etched into a tree.

What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? That question has consumed historians, archeologists, and amateur sleuths for four hundred years. In THE SECRET TOKEN, Lawler sets out on a quest to determine the fate of the settlers, and introduces readers to a host of characters, from Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth to Virginia Dare, the first English baby born in America whose image has recently resurfaced as a symbol of ethnic purity by the alt-right.

Incisive and absorbing, The Secret Token offers a new understanding not just of the Lost Colony and its fate, but of how its absence continues to define--and divide--America.



ANDREW LAWLER is the author of the highly acclaimed Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?. He is a contributing writer for Science, a contributing editor for Archaeology Magazine, and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Slate.