The Snowy: a history. Siobhan McHugh. 2019.

The construction of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme between 1949 and 1974 still ranks as one of the world’s greatest engineering feats. For Australia, it marked a passage from the Old World to the New and became a monument to multiculturalism along the way. With over three hundred photographs and based on interviews with hundreds of those who were part of the Scheme, The Snowy is the definitive account of this unique project which was, in the words of Professor Manning Clark, ‘an inspiration to all who dream dreams about Australia.’

Two thirds of the Scheme’s one hundred thousand workers were immigrants, newly arrived from more than forty countries in war-weary Europe. The Snowy was to provide them with an opportunity to rebuild shattered lives and to try and forget the devastation and animosities of war. Mutual suspicion between New and Old Australians gradually gave way to cautious acceptance, and the disparate workforce became a skilled and united team that set world records in hard rock drilling and earthmoving in an environment of extraordinary racial and industrial harmony. The mateship was not without cost - the work was often dangerous, and the accidents that killed over one hundred men are investigated here in detail for the first time.