The Regulator welcomes Scott Huler for a reading and signing of his new book, A Delicious Country: Rediscovering the Carolinas along the Route of John Lawson's 1700 Expedition. The author will be joined in conversation by Duke Professor Daniel Richter of the Nicholas School of the Environment.
In 1700, a young man named John Lawson left London and landed in Charleston, hoping to make a name for himself. For reasons unknown, he soon undertook a two-month journey through the still-mysterious Carolina backcountry. His travels yielded A New Voyage to Carolina in 1709, one of the most significant early American travel narratives, rich with observations about the region's environment and Indigenous people. Lawson later helped found North Carolina's first two cities, Bath and New Bern. In 2014, Scott Huler made a surprising decision: to leave home and family for his own journey by foot and canoe, faithfully retracing Lawson's route through the Carolinas. Combining a traveler's curiosity, a naturalist's keen observation, and a writer's wit, Huler finds surprising parallels between Lawson's time and our own, with the locals and their world poised along a knife-edge of change between a past they can't forget and a future they can’t quite envision.
Scott Huler is the author of six previous books of nonfiction and is based in Raleigh.
Dan Richter is a professor of Soils and Forest Ecology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. He co-authored the book, Understanding Soil Change (Cambridge University Press), and his research and teaching has been featured in Science magazine.
