In the late 1800s Australia was a land divided. Its six colonies were separated by trade barriers, railway gauges, defence and immigration policies, postal and telegraph routes, time zones and decades of mutual distrust. To some, the time was ripe for federal union, but the political will and passion of unification was found wanting. It would take a remarkable group of individuals and, ultimately, the collective will of the people to set Australia on a journey toward nationhood. Federation is the story of that journey. In the style of the acclaimed US documentary series The Civil War, but characterised by a distinctly Australia humour, the story of Federation is told through the characters of the period. It is as much the story of our founding fathers as it is of a popular movement that seized the hearts and minds of a disparate people. It is the story of bargains struck, lost tempers, lost causes, constitutional crisis and bad poetry, all in the name of federation. It capures the grand drama of how a country came together, almost in spite of itself; of how, in the words of one of the central players and future Prime Minister, Alfred Deakin,: Federation must always appear to have been secured by a series of miracles.