James P. Walsh was born in 1937 in San Francisco, California, the younger of two sons of Irish immigrant parents. His father, Patrick Walsh managed and maintained a Catholic men's club in San Francisco. His mother, Nellie Murphy Walsh was a homemaker. During his youth, James Walsh attended Catholic schools in San Francisco, graduating from Sacred Heart High School in 1955. From there he attended the University of San Francisco, where he received his bachelor's degree in history in 1959, and his master's degree in history in 1962. He married Ann McKinnon, also a University of San Francisco graduate, in 1962. They have three children.

In 1960 Walsh accepted a position teaching history in a Marin County high school. While his winters and springs were spent teaching history to high school students, his summer months were spent teaching military subjects at The Sixth US Army Intelligence School in Monterey, California, as partial fulfillment of his US Army Reserve obligations. There, he met several members of the San José State College faculty including Charles Burdick, George Moore, Benjamin Hazard, Bert Brazil, and Fredrick Weed. The teaching and academic examples provided by these professors encouraged Walsh to pursue a higher degree. In 1964 Walsh left his teaching position to pursue a Ph.D. in history at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1966, he joined the history department at San José State College and in 1970 received his doctorate degree from Berkeley.

Walsh's career spanned 35 years at San José State. During that time he served as chair of the history department (1982-1986), associate dean of the College of Social Sciences (1987-1988), Dean of the College of Social Sciences (1988-1994), and academic vice president [renamed Provost] (1995). During his career he received three foreign research and teaching appointments and published eight books. In recognition of his contributions to the historical profession, the California Historical Society honored Walsh with the J.S. Holliday Award.

San José State University: An Interpretive History 1950-2000 is the result of James Walsh's recommendation to University President Robert L. Caret that the previous university history, , was out of date and that a new history was needed. Since the previous history's publication in 1980, the campus, faculty, student body, and educational mission of San José State University had changed significantly. In addition, Washington Square's co-author and Walsh's mentor, Charles Burdick, encouraged him to reassess that work if given the opportunity.

He spent one additional year researching and writing the history of Continuing Education as well as International Studies SJSU (2005)., chronicles the connection between the development of San José State University as a modern institution and the continuing education programs that existed at the begining of its institutional life.

Walsh's other major works include: , , and , , . A more complete list of his publications and a retrospective on their meaning are available in by Donald Jordan and Timothy J. O'Keefe.