James Belich (historian)

James Belich, 2010

James Christopher Belich, ONZM (born 1956) is a New Zealand revisionist historian, known for his work on the New Zealand Wars.

Of Croatian descent, he was born in Wellington in 1956, the son of Sir James Belich, who later became Mayor of Wellington. He attended Onslow College.

He gained an M.A. in history at Victoria University before being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in 1978 and travelling to Oxford to complete his D.Phil at Nuffield College. He lectured at Victoria University of Wellington for several years before moving to the University of Auckland. In 2007 he was appointed Professor of History at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University.

The New Zealand Wars (1987) was based on his DPhil thesis, and won the international Trevor Reese Memorial Prize. It was later turned into a major documentary series for Television New Zealand.

'I Shall Not Die': Titokowaru's War (1990), based on his MA thesis, was also highly praised, winning the Adam Award for New Zealand literature.

Belich has written a two volume work A History of the New Zealanders, consisting of Making Peoples (1996) and Paradise Reforged (2001).

Belich was made an Officer of New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours List for service to historic research.

He expanded his area of research to colonial societies in general with Replenishing the earth (2009).

In 2011 Belich was appointed Beit Professor of Commonwealth History at Oxford University.

Works

• Titokowaru's war and its place in New Zealand's history. MA Thesis. Victoria University of Wellington 1979.
• New Zealand Wars 1845-1870: an analysis of their history and interpretation. 1982. PhD Thesis. Nuffield College/Oxford University
• I shall not die: Tītokowaru’s war, New Zealand, 1868-9. Bridget Williams Books, 1993. ISBN 0046140220
• Making peoples: a history of the New Zealanders: from Polynesian settlement to the end of the nineteenth century Penguin, 2007. ISBN 9780143007043
• The New Zealand wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict. Auckland University Press, 1986. ISBN 186940002X
• Paradise reforged : a history of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the year 2000. University of Hawai’i Press, 2001. ISBN 082482542X

External links

• Victoria University of Wellington Stout Research Centre page
• University of Auckland website
• University of Auckland personal page

See also

• New Zealand literature