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Water Dreamers Click to enlarge
Water Dreamers
By Michael Cathcart
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Water Dreamers

By (author) Michael CathcartSee other recent books by Michael Cathcart

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4 star rating (from 1 customer reviews)

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The story of the settlement of Australia and how our culture has been shaped by the scarcity of water and by the need to fill the imagined silence of the continent with the sounds of civilisation. It's the story of who we are today as much as a history of how the country grew. From the moment the First Fleeters stepped ashore, water determined progress. The tank stream that flowed through what is now the Sydney CBD provided fresh water until settlers and their livestock fouled it. Then water carriers carted buckets from a nearby swamp, which was later piped, in a major feat of engineering, into the growing settlement. When it ran dry sights were set further afield. And so the story continued. Explorers followed waterways. Frontier battles between Aboriginal and white Australians were as much contests over water as they were of land. Grand irrigation plans and dreams were based on a notion that water was a resource to be exploited. This is an illuminating look at the ways people have imagined and interpreted Australia while struggling to understand this continent and striving to conquer its obstacles. It's an important work of environmental and cultural history with an unmistakable sense of how, today, we are part of that continuing story.

ISBN: 9781921520648
Classification: Social & cultural history , Australasian & Pacific history , Colonialism & imperialism
Format: Paperback (234mm x 152mm x mm)
Pages: 336
Publish Date: 3-Aug-2009
Country of Publication: Australia

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4 star rating (average rating from 1 reviews) » Write a review and go into the draw to win our monthly book review prize - a $50 Boomerang Bucks credit!

4 star rating by Boomert - The Water Dreamers: How Water and Silence Shaped Australia by Michael Cathcart 12 Jan 2010
I’m glad for books like Michael Cathcart’s The Water Dreamers. In recent years, history has been reinvigorated by taking new slants on old narratives. Here, Cathcart traces the familiar narrative of Australian history by concentrating on water, namely a lack of it, in a dry ‘silent’ continent. What this approach allows is a kind of environmental, as well as economic, history to unfold as the new colony rapaciously moves outward, subsuming indigenous communities in search of scarce water resources. This is contrasted with the indigenous husbanding of the land and its water, and the deep knowledge and often ingenious systems devised to use water in concert with the land, rather than against it. Overlaying this is the larger cultural picture of Australia as a hostile place, with an enormous silence at its heart. In the European mind, the land is under-utilised, waiting for the civilising touch of resource exploitation and development. The question that constantly came to mind while reading was ‘How far have we come?’. As recent history has shown and Cathcart suggests, the answer is not far. This is a fascinating history that fits nicely into the larger picture of Australia, while exploring some of the things we take for granted in our national psyche.

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine (March 2009, Vol 88, No 6.) is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2009, Thorpe-Bowker.

Author Biography: Michael Cathcart
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Recent books by Michael Cathcart » View all books by Michael Cathcart

Water Dreamers
Water Dreamers, Paperback (August 2010)
Water Dreamers
Water Dreamers, Paperback (August 2009)
Stirring Australian Speeches
Stirring Australian Speeches, Hardback (November 2004)
Manning Clark's History of Australia
Manning Clark's History of Australia, Paperback (January 1995)
Manning Clark's History of Australia
Manning Clark's History of Australia, Hardback (March 1994)
Manning Clark's History of Australia
Manning Clark's History of Australia, Hardback (May 1993)
Manning Clark's History of Australia: an Abridgement
Manning Clark's History of Australia: an Abridgement, Hardback (August 1989)
Defending the National Tucksho
Defending the National Tucksho, Paperback (March 1989)
Defending the National Tuckshop
Defending the National Tuckshop, Paperback (August 1988)
» View all books by Michael Cathcart
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