Snowy: The Making of Modern Australia

SNOWY: The Making of Modern Australia celebrates the people, the politics, the tragedies and the achievements that contributed to the creation of the Scheme.

It began in 1949 and construction took 25 years. Many of the workers that poured into the alpine wilderness were recruited from refugee camps across post-War Europe; pitching together friend and foe from the most devastating war the world had ever seen. They were ready to build a new life for themselves and their families in a strange new land.

Under extraordinary isolation and hardship, they created something phenomenal; an engineering wonder of the modern world. In doing so they also transformed Australia from English and agricultural to a multicultural society with a modern industrial economy.

Author Brad Collis recounts from scores of first-person interviews and archival records both the human and technological achievements of the Snowy Scheme. This book includes maps, technical drawings and photographs.