Shirley Baker and the King of Tonga

by Noel Rutherford

Of all the Pacific nations only Tonga has retained a complete and lasting political independence. Find out how the shrewd, determined King of Tonga, Tupou I, teamed up with Wesleyan missionary and opportunist Shirley Baker to bring this about.

200 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 1996

Reviews

[Karen Mosley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting history and I had to read it when I was living in Tonga. I felt like the information given often jumped back and forward chronologically when trying to describe one event so that made the flow more challenging to follow. It’s interesting to me how the Tongans still follow many of this very influential man’s ideas 130-some years later.

[Kosta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Noel Rutherford gives a mostly nuanced revision of the legacy of Shirley W. Baker, a Wesleyan missionary who got into King Tupou I's good graces and managed to hold de facto power over the legal and economic development of Tonga as an independent nation.

The book is intended as a revision of previous writing on Baker, which was universally negative. It makes the case convincingly that he was a more complex character than those earlier texts imply, but that means that it is a bit more forgiving than a more modern perspective would be. It is also hard to follow at points, as the progression is not fully linear, but tends to always cover the present +/- a year. It's done in order to provide a narrative of interconnected events and give context to what's going on, which is admirable, but it does make it confusing in parts.

Baker was a complicated figure with a complicated legacy, and occasional biases aside this book does a good job of laying it out for the average reader.