He studied at Kyoto University for three years, returning to the Netherlands in 1975, where he worked at the Indonesian Studies Center and then took over the Center for the History of European Expansion in 1976.
他在日本京都大學三年，一九七五年回到荷蘭先在印尼研究中心工作，後來適逢歷史系歐洲擴張中心擴大編制，增列歐洲人在亞洲發展的研究，這一部分便由包樂史主持。