Alpha Book

[Sidenote: Grotius]
The first effective work, the one which was destined long to influence
sovereigns and diplomats, was Grotius's _On the Law of War and
Peace_. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) [Footnote: Known in his native
country as Huig van Groot. The last years of his life he spent as
ambassador of Sweden at the French court.] was a learned Dutch
humanist, whose active participation in politics against the stadholder
of the Netherlands and whose strong protests for religious toleration
against the dominant orthodox Calvinists of his country combined to
bring upon himself a sentence of life imprisonment. Immured in a Dutch
fortress in 1619, he managed to escape and fled to Paris, where he
prepared and in 1625 published his immortal work. _On the Law of War
and Peace_ is an exhaustive and masterly text-book--the first and
one of the best of the systematic treatises on the fundamental
principles of international law.

ADDITIONAL READING

HENRY IV, RICHELIEU, AND MAZARIN. Brief general accounts: H.


Pages:
491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515