Kiwi historian nabs leading role at Oxford University
Prominent New Zealand historian Professor James Belich has been appointed to one of the top jobs in the world in his field.
Professor Belich will take up the Beit Professorship of Commonwealth and Imperial History at Oxford University in the United Kingdom in October this year.
He is currently Professor of History at Victoria University’s Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies.
The Beit Professorship provides research leadership in Commonwealth, imperial and global history and is awarded to a historian of exceptional and international reputation.
The position was established in 1905 and Professor Belich will be the seventh historian to hold it.
Professor Belich says the appointment is an honour and will allow him to take his research interests, which he describes as ‘increasingly global’ to a wider canvas.
As one of Oxford’s most senior historians, Professor Belich will also play a leading role in moving the discipline ahead.
One of his goals is to establish a Centre for Global History at Oxford University. “Global history is at an interesting point. It has to shake itself free of the assumption that it’s a history of Western civilisation.”
Born in Wellington, Professor Belich gained a BA and MA from Victoria. As a Rhodes Scholar, he went on to Oxford University and graduated as a doctor of philosophy in 1981.
His book The New Zealand Wars won the Trevor Reese Memorial Prize for historical scholarship in 1987 and was later turned into a major television documentary series. Other internationally acclaimed works include his two-volume history of New Zealand - Making Peoples and Paradise Reforged.
Replenishing the Earth, which has just been published in paperback, has drawn praise from some of the world’s leading historians.
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Comments and questions11
One of his goals is to establish a Centre for Global History at Oxford University. “Global history is at an interesting point. It has to shake itself free of the assumption that it’s a history of Western civilisation.”
So he's another Frankfurt School Long Marcher.
What a c*ck!
I hold the above opinion as a Brasenose man.
"It has to shake itself free of the assumption that it’s a history of Western civilisation."
What drivel - this happened decades ago. Not sure if he really believes this or whether it is to emphasise his right-on multicultural credentials.
I wonder if he'll last as long as NZ's last export to Oxford, John Hood, that unlamented exponent of Powerpoint and management-speak.
Multiculturalism has failed!
Yeah, but Hood had matrimonial woes.
Good on him, great to see a kiwi in such a prestigious position within the Commonwealth. All "west is best" has demonstrated is a severe case of tall poppy syndrome, probably filling in the gap of not having any of his own accomplishments! All the best to Dr Belich.
I think your analysis incorrect. Try Googling 'Frankfurt School' and you will see that their agenda is to become part of the West's most prestigious organisation and change them from within...as Munzenberg said 'we will make the West so corrupt it stinks'. I think 'West is Best's' educational standard is in no doubt based on this clear reference - not least as Brasenose is perhaps one of the premier Oxford Uni Colleges for History.
The ultimate Tall Poppy SYndrome is exhibited by those that seek to denigrate Western Civilisation and accomplishments as part of this Frankfurt School agenda...which they called the long march through the institutions. You should also google 'useful idiot' and try not to be one.
Oooh, some academic tweaking of beards going on here!
The third-world , by virtue of their racial and cultural " otherness " are seen as intrinsically virtuous.
It is an inverted racism and nauseating .
The permanently intellectual White, adolescent , student faculty Left progressives , who have never advanced beyond the mental age of 16 , feel the need to fetishize the narcissism of their own virtue by constantly condemning their own society as
" waycist " ( nasal tone ) oppressive, totalitarian and barbaric, while mouthing off their supposed affinity with the rest of the " oppressed and exploited by the White man " world.
It is the supreme ego glow of :
" oh look how morally superior I am , that I condemn my entire civilization as criminal " .
It is nothingless than anti-White bigotry , hate , malice and racism , perpetuated by a combination of infantile utopianism and silliness , pseudo intellectual sloth , and tarted up with pretentious , pious , sanctimonious cliche drivel .
dear brasenose man
if that is best argument you can muster, they might want to disown you.
And if this column represents the reasoned debate of a national business publication ...well, at the very least they need a moderator!
Dear WEST IS BEST
As a Brasenose man too, I disagree with you.
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