author
Hugo Grotius
1583–1645
A brilliant Dutch thinker who helped shape the way the modern world talks about war, peace, and international law. His life was just as dramatic as his ideas, including imprisonment, a daring escape, and years spent in exile and diplomacy.
4 Audiobooks
Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne
by Hugo Grotius
Traité du Pouvoir du Magistrat Politique sur les choses sacrées
by Hugo Grotius
The Rights of War and Peace
by Hugo Grotius
About the author
Born in Delft in 1583, Hugo Grotius was a Dutch jurist, scholar, diplomat, theologian, and writer whose work reached across law, politics, religion, and literature. He became known as an extraordinary prodigy at a young age, and later wrote widely on questions of justice, conflict, trade, and faith.
He is best remembered for On the Law of War and Peace (De Jure Belli ac Pacis, 1625), a book that became one of the foundational texts in the history of international law. Grotius argued that relations between states could be guided by principles of natural law rather than force alone, and that idea gave his work a long afterlife far beyond his own century.
His career was shaped by the fierce political and religious struggles of the Dutch Republic. After siding with the losing faction in a major conflict, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, famously escaped from Loevestein Castle, and lived for years in exile in Paris. Later he served as Sweden’s ambassador to France, and he died in 1645 after a difficult journey back from the Baltic.