Born in Sydney, Australia, he studied History and Philosophy at the Australian National University. At the London School of Economics in London he was a disciple of Martin Wight, of whose work he is a debtor, because his famous distinction between the three traditions of thought about world politics is the common thread of anarchic society. He was a prominent advocate of the classical approach to international relations theory against the scientific invasion of the social sciences of the 1960s. After a stint as director of the Foreign Office's Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit, he returned to the Australian National University and later taught at Jawarhalal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, where he became interested in what which would later be called the revolt against the West of the Third World countries. From 1977 until his early death in 1985 he was Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford. His academic legacy includes numerous articles, the edition of several collective books (singularly, The expansion of international society, with Adam Watson) and two seminal works: The Anarchic Society and Justice in international relations (1985).