Black studied at
Queens' College, Cambridge,
St John's College, Oxford, and
Merton College, Oxford, before joining
Durham University as a lecturer in 1980, where he earned his PhD and subsequently a professorship in 1994. His doctoral thesis was entitled
British Foreign Policy 1727–1731, and completed in 1983. As a staff candidate he was not attached to any of the
Durham colleges. He has served on the Council of the British Records Association (1989–2005); the Council of the
Royal Historical Society (1993–1996 and 1997–2000); and the Council of the
List and Index Society (from 1997). He has sat on the editorial boards of
History Today,
International History Review,
Journal of Military History,
Media History and the
Journal of the Royal United Service Institution (now the
RUSI Journal). ==Awards and honours==