Ian Black (Estate Of)

Dr Ian Black (1953-2023) was a Middle East editor, diplomatic editor and European editor for the Guardian newspaper. He reported and commented extensively on the Arab uprisings and their aftermath in Syria, Libya and Egypt, and paid frequent visits to Iran, the Gulf and across the MENA region. He earned an MA in History and Social and Political Science from the University of Cambridge and held a PhD in government from LSE.

During his accomplished career, Ian wrote for the Economist, the Washington Post and many other publications, and was a regular commentator on TV and radio on Middle Eastern and international affairs. He wrote the introduction to The Arab Spring (Guardian Books, 2012); Israel’s Secret Wars (Grove Press, 1991), Zionism and the Arabs, 1936–1939 (Taylor & Francis, 1986, 2015); and contributed to the Encyclopaedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa (Macmillan Library Reference, 2004).

His book, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, told a new history of the Palestine–Israel conflict to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration and the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war. Published by Allen Lane in 2017, it has been hailed as ‘a nuanced, landmark study that deservedly won plaudits from both Palestinian and Israeli historians’ (The Times).

You can read his Guardian obituary here.