James Belich (historian)

James Belich
James Belich in 2010
Born	1956 Wellington, New Zealand
Residence	Oxford
Nationality	New Zealander
Fields	History
Alma mater	Victoria University of Wellington Oxford University
Notable awards	ONZM Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement 2010
Website Staff profile at Oxford University

James Christopher Belich, ONZM (born 1956), is a New Zealand historian, known for his work on the New Zealand Wars and on New Zealand history more generally. One of his major works on the 19th-century clash between Māori and Pākehā, the revisionist study The New Zealand Wars (1986), was also published in an American edition and adapted into a television series and DVD.

Since 2013 Belich has been the Beit Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History and as the Director of the Oxford Centre for Global History at the University of Oxford.

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.