Too many “centre” and “periphery” designs are stale promotions for an overused resort. Conventional analyses of Australia’s imperial connection undervalue important reciprocities, impressive evidence of local initiative, and productive interchange with other settler societies. Furthermore, notwithstanding the seemingly ubiquitous influence of investment flows and the bonding relationship of high science with the British sphere, Australia’s colonists also relied on their own vernacular brands of science and technology and on a negotiation of diverse relationships with the wider world. Perhaps all too obviously — given its accepted status in standard histories of the driest of the inhabited continents — “water management” in its many guises has been fundamental in the Australian settlement experience. Water management narratives, highlighting environmental appraisal, resource development and community responses to ecological change over the period 1788-1950, shed new light on the imperial connection.
