The Water Dreamers

The long-awaited history that will change the way Australians think about their country.

The Water Dreamers is the story of the settlement of Australia: of the scarcity of water and the need to fill an imagined silence with the sounds of civilisation. 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 from a nearby swamp was piped into the growing settlement. When it ran dry sights were set further afield.

The Water Dreamers is an illuminating account of the ways people have imagined and interpreted Australia while struggling to understand this continent and striving to conquer its obstacles. It’s an environmental history and a cultural history with an unmistakable sense of how, today, we are part of that continuing story.

Praise for The Water Dreamers:

‘Both rollicking yarn and scholarly essay, this wonderful book offers an archaeology of our national psyche. With vivid imagery, irreverent wit and penetrating insight, Michael Cathcart reveals the subterranean contours of the Australian geographical imagination and exposes the cultural forces that still powerfully shape our plans for this land. The Water Dreamers is exhilarating to read—intelligent, wry and compelling.’

— Tom Griffiths

‘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.’

— Australian Bookseller & Publisher

‘Desert continent, newcomers, clashing with threatened locals, resource-sharing unheard of and the water of life is a touchstone for all manner of endeavour… After years of drought, this historical account show—from Port Jackson’s Tank Stream through explorers and the Snowy scheme—just how political this resource has been and remains.’

— Geelong Advertiser

‘Water defines Australia. It is the economy’s lifeblood and the reason for national patterns of settlement. This is the foundation idea of this timely book. …Author Michael Cathcart offers a measured perspective for many farmers and increasingly, city dwellers….This is a very readable book with immediate appeal for farmers, irrigators and primary producers broadly.’

— Weekly Times

About the Author

Michael Cathcart was born in Melbourne in 1956—the year that television came to Australia. He was educated at Melbourne Grammar, the University of Melbourne, ANU and a tyre factory in Port Melbourne. He has worked as a schoolteacher, university lecturer and theatre director. Cathcart has presented several Radio National programs, including ‘Arts Today’ and the ‘Radio National Quiz’, and for ABC TV he has presented the history magazine show ‘Rewind’ and the documentary series ‘Rogue Nation’. Cathcart is the author of Defending the National Tuckshop (1988), an expose of a secret militia called the White Army formed in Victoria in 1931, and he has published an abridgement of Manning Clark’s epic A History of Australia and an anthology of Australian speeches. Michael Cathcart’s latest book is The Water Dreamers.