Huang went to the United States to study Chinese History. At the University of Michigan, he received his Bachelor's degree in 1954, his Masters Degree in 1957 and his Doctorate in 1964. He was appointed Visiting Associate Professor at Columbia University in 1967, and a Professor at the State University of New York, New Paltz Branch in 1968–1980. He was a research fellow at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard in 1970. He worked with the leading American Sinologist John K. Fairbank. Nevertheless, Huang and Fairbank disagreed in research methodology. Fairbank liked concentrated analysis in short time frames and limited areas, while Huang liked synthesis covering broad time periods (though Huang's classic work "1587, a Year of No Significance" had a very tight focus).