author
Henri La Fontaine
1854–1943
A Belgian lawyer, senator, and tireless peace campaigner, he won the 1913 Nobel Peace Prize for helping organize the international peace movement. He is also remembered for co-founding the ambitious documentation project that grew into the Mundaneum, an early attempt to gather the world's knowledge in one place.
1 Audiobook
Création d'un répertoire bibliographique universel : Conférence Bibliographique Internationale, 1895, publication no. 1
by Henri La Fontaine, Paul Otlet
About the author
Born in Brussels on April 22, 1854, Henri La Fontaine studied law at the Free University of Brussels and built a career as an international lawyer and public figure. He served for many years in the Belgian Senate, where he took a strong interest in social policy, foreign affairs, and international cooperation.
La Fontaine became one of the leading voices of the peace movement in Europe. As president of the International Peace Bureau, he worked to promote arbitration and international organization as alternatives to war, and in 1913 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for that work.
He also shared a deep interest in knowledge and documentation. Together with Paul Otlet, he helped create the vast bibliographic enterprise that led to the Mundaneum, a project designed to collect and organize information from across the world. That mix of idealism, scholarship, and practical organizing makes him an especially fascinating figure today.