The British Empire also holds a similar tiny island in the Pacific: Pitcairn, population 67, inhabited by the descendants of the Mutiny on the Bounty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty
On the slightly larger side, I was able to visit Easter Island at one point. Depletion of natural resources led to an all out class war that nearly wiped everyone out (see: the popular 'Collapse' (2005)). It is a very eerie place to visit because there is not much vegetation across large parts of the island and you can see the the extent of the island in all directions standing on one of the peaks. I couldn't really put my finger on it at the time but I definitely had an uneasy feeling being in such a remote location in the middle of the vast ocean. It hits you in the gut that you would be trapped on this tiny speck of land if it were not for the occasional airplane or cargo ship. I can only imagine what crew of the Bounty (or any other shipwreck) felt.
It's a similar isolating feeling on Pitcairn. There's no air access so I arrived via a two day boat trip from Mangareva. Once there my boat left leaving me with no way off for the time I was there until another arrived to pick me up. You become very aware of how problematic a medical emergency would be.
In the Netherlands we had a Dutch writer, Boudewijn Büch[0], who was obsessed with remote islands and as such visited many. He wrote his experiences in several books, which might be of interest to to some people.
I'm not sure if any of his books were translated to English though.
He also made a few documentaries for television, for example a visit to Tahiti[1] (again, in Dutch).
I visited Pitcairn Island a few years ago, staying with an island couple. It's a great place to explore and I found the islanders friendly and welcoming.
There is an aspect of wariness I think with outsiders amongst them - especially those who are journalists or involved in media in some aspect. They've been bitten before and had their lives written about (Dea Birkett's book Serpent in Paradise comes to mind).
Interesting, I had thought that the Bounty mutineers had died out because of lack of genetic diversity/lack of resources already.
Not quite the same, but there are islands in the St. Lawrence in Quebec that are similar backwaters. My father has been hunting snow geese on Ile-aux-Grues, just across from Montmane, Quebec. At this point, there are only about a dozen families on the island that stay there and continue doing the guiding/dairying lifestyle that is traditional year-round.
When the outside world came into contact with the Pitcairn settlement there was one mutineer left, John Adams. There were Tahitian women alive as well who were part of the Bounty story, having been retrieved from Tahiti after the mutiny.
The island did suffer from lack of resources as the population grew. This lead to two migrations. One to Tahiti in 1831 and another to Norfolk Island in 1856. The latter is where many Norfolk Islanders can claim their ancestry from. Some islanders returned from Norfolk and re-settled Pitcairn soon after that migration.
With regards to genetic diversity, there have been many 'outsiders' that have settled and married with islanders. These were often the result of visiting whalers and shipwrecked sailors. You'll find most of the ancestral lines on Pitcairn have a mix of the initial mutineers, their Tahitian wives and outsiders giving genetic diversity.
I can only think in all this remote islanders and how their way of living will be equivalent of the space settlers of the future. Tiny communities almost completely isolated from the rest of human kind, but yet at the same time, having to deal with the rest of the universe.
It is mainly notable for a contentious rape trial in 2004: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_sexual_assault_trial_o...
Long form Vanity Fair article, which is sufficiently similar to the OP that at first I thought I was rereading the same essay: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/01/pitcairn200801