Michael King, OBE (December 15, 1945 – March 30, 2004) was a New Zealand popular historian, author and biographer.

Educated at Sacred Heart College in Auckland and St Patrick's College at Silverstream (Wellington), King went on to study history at Victoria University of Wellington before working as a journalist at the Waikato Times newspaper in Hamilton.

King earned degrees in history at Victoria, (BA 1967) and the University of Waikato (MA 1968), and gained his Ph.D. at Waikato (1978). In 1997 he received an honorary D.Litt. at Victoria.