He told the stories of people New Zealand hadn't yet seen written about with care — Te Puea Herangi, Whina Cooper, Frank Sargeson and Janet Frame among them.

His history of the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands was the first of its kind and helped spark a Moriori cultural renaissance. He explored identity from the other direction too, coining the idea of Pākehātanga: that Pākehā New Zealanders with generations-deep roots form a culture shaped as much by sustained contact with Māori as by their European origins, explored firsthand in Being Pākehā and Being Pākehā Now.

He was awarded an OBE in 1988 and an honorary doctorate from Victoria University in 1997. In 2003 he was joint winner of the inaugural Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement and was named the New Zealand Herald's New Zealander of the Year. Other honours include the Wattie Book of the Year (twice), the NZ Book Award for non-fiction, and Readers' Choice at the 2004 Montana NZ Book Awards for The Penguin History of New Zealand.

Born in Wellington on 15 December 1945, King was one of four children to Lewis and Eleanor King, and grew up in Paremata. He was educated at Sacred Heart College in Auckland and St Patrick's College, Silverstream — then went on to study history at Victoria University of Wellington (BA, 1967) and Waikato University (MA, 1968), working as a journalist at the Waikato Times in Hamilton in between, from 1968 to 1971. He completed his PhD in History at Waikato in 1978.

He married Ros Henry in 1967. Their children, Jonathan Michael (b. 1967) and Rachael Frances (b. 1970), grew up to become a film-maker and a novelist respectively.

King taught journalism at Wellington Polytechnic from 1971 to 1974, then spent the next two decades moving between universities and fellowships: the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship (1976), the Winston Churchill Fellowship at the University of Auckland (1980), a writer's fellowship at Victoria University (1983), a Fulbright Visiting Writers' Fellowship (1988), and the Burns Fellowship at Otago (1998–99). In 1976, despite the financial risk, he gave it all up to write full-time.

He was a committed mentor to younger writers and journalists throughout — guest lecturing from the early 1990s, running writers' workshops, and training young Māori journalists. He was still involved in a mentoring programme run by the New Zealand Society of Authors at the time of his death.

In 1987 he married Maria Jungowska, a book editor, and in 1993 the couple moved to Opoutere on the Coromandel — the place King loved most. He and Maria died together there in a car accident on 30 March 2004. Their children sold the house to Waikato University in 2008; it's now used as a retreat for staff and visiting academics.

Michael King wrote more than 30 books on a wide range of subjects. These are listed below.

This year his daughter Rachael King, who is a prominent novelist,  has written a book which includes some of his previously unpublished work.  The Silence Beyond has recently been published by Penguin. 

• Moko: Maori Tattooing in the 20th Century (1972)

• Make It News: how to approach the media (1974)

• Face Value: a study in Maori portraiture (1975)

• Te Ao Hurihuri: aspects of Maoritanga (ed.) (1975)

• Te Puea: a biography (1977)

• Tihe mauri ora: Aspects of Maoritanga (ed.) (1978)

• New Zealand: Its Land and Its People (1979)

• The Collector: a biography of Andreas Reischek (1981}

• Being Maori – John Rangihau (1981)

• New Zealanders at War (1981)

• A Place to Stand: a history of Turangawaewae Marae (1981)

• G.F. von Tempsky, Artist and Adventurer (with Rose Young) (1981)

• New Zealand in Colour (1982)

• Maori: a photographic and social history (1983)

• Whina: a biography of Whina Cooper (l983)

• Te Puea Herangi: from darkness to light (1984)

• Being Pakeha: an Encounter with New Zealand and the Maori renaissance (1985)

• Auckland (with Eric Taylor) (1985)

• Kawe korero: a guide to reporting Maori activities (1985)

• Death of the Rainbow Warrior (1986)

• New Zealand (1987)

• After the War: New Zealand since 1945 (1988)

• One of the boys?: changing views of masculinity in New Zealand (1988)

• Apirana Ngata: e tipu e rea (l988)

• Moriori: a people rediscovered (1989)

• A Land Apart: the Chatham Islands of New Zealand (1990)

• Pakeha: the quest for identity in New Zealand (1991)

• Hidden Places: a memoir in journalism (1992)

• Coromandel (1993)

• Frank Sargeson: a life (1995)

• God’s Farthest Outpost: a history of Catholics in New Zealand (1997)

• Nga iwi o te motu: one thousand years of Maori history (1997)

• Being Pakeha Now: reflections and recollections of a white native (1999)

• Wrestling with the Angel: a life of Janet Frame (2000)

• Tomorrow Comes the Song: a life of Peter Fraser (with Michael Bassett) (2000)

• Tread Softly for you tread on my life: new & collected writings(2001)

• An Inward Sun: the world of Janet Frame (2002)

• At the Edge of Memory: a family story (2002)

• The Penguin History of New Zealand (2003)