The Future of Tokelau is a sequel to Judith Huntsman and Antony Hooper's Tokelau: A Historical Ethnography (1997), and follows the history of that small Pacific nation from the 1970s up to the recent referendum in which Tokelauans decisively voted against independence. This is an extraordinary story &– a dramatic narrative &– sometimes taking place under the palm trees of far-away Tokelau, sometimes in the bland offices of New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, sometimes in the monumental UN building in New York. Officials and politicians and Tokelau elders all play their role and the repeated clash of cultures leads to comic, bizarre and often disturbing outcomes. A superbly researched study of the politics of a small state in a modern world, The Future of Tokelau is also an illuminating picture of MFAT, its operations and relationships, and a brilliant critique of the United Nations and the way it conducts its affairs.

Tokelau: A Historical Ethnography is the outcome of more than two decades of intensive and wide-ranging research in and about the three tiny Polynesian atolls known as Tokelau. The book is both a comparative ethnographic study of the islands of Tokelau and a narrative record of their past. The ethnographic study is set in the years around 1970, and local narratives and records complement foreign documents to tell the separate and combined stories of the atolls traditional, contact, and colonial pasts. Throughout, the differences and interrelationships between the three places are highlighted.

Having spent two years in Tokelau, Peter McQuarrie candidly shares the rich history and culture of this relatively unknown group of Pacific atolls. He also shares geographic information about the atolls, their flora and fauna, the relationship between Tokelauans and other Pacific islanders, and the special links with Tuvalu.