Māori prosperity and development / Dr Greg Clydesdale.

Includes bibliographical references.

A Māori elite -- Māori economic history -- Explanations for Māori marginalisation -- The cost of isolation -- Did colonisation improve the life of Māori? -- Tamariki: providing a future of prosperity and choice -- Te reo: "Sounds all made up" -- Achieving Māori potential.

"Twenty years ago, the Ngāi Tahu Development Corp contracted Dr Clydesdale to write a strategy to enhance the prosperity of its members. This triggered a life-long motive to raise Māori welfare. In this book, he explores the reasons for Māori marginalisation and what is necessary to fulfil their potential. For decades, government policy has failed to close the gap between Māori and Pākehā. Several reasons exist for this including a failure to understand the drivers of economic prosperity and a vision of history that stops at 1840. This book argues that we need to delve deeper into history, culture and traditional capabilities. Policy planners have given insufficient consideration to absorptive capacity, early capability development and the costs of isolation. Finally, Clydesdale argues that the policies have failed because they have placed mana of a few above the prosperity of a people. This book has implications not just for Māori, but the prosperity of New Zealand as a nation."--Back cover.