 His teachers included Arthur Llewellyn Basham, Cyril Philips, William G. Beasley, C. R. Boxer, Bernard Lewis, Eric Hobsbawm, G.J.Renier, Michael Oakeshott, and Karl Popper.In 1959, he was the first undergraduate since Bernard Lewis in 1936 to obtain First Class Honours in Final BA Examinations in History from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.