Grotius's JBP: 400th Anniversary and New Bibliography

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of Hugo Grotius's De jure belli ac pacis ('On the Law of War and Peace') (1625), considered the most influential early modern treatise on international law, which had a profound impact on European (and American) thought. A child prodigy, humanist, lawyer, politician, and polymath from the Dutch Republic, Grotius (1583-1645) shaped the tradition of the 'law of nations' (jus gentium) into a series of secularized doctrines based prominently on natural rights to property. His work provided standards for prosecuting and resolving (often armed) disputes between European nations during the age of expansion, and helped to justify the forms of its expansion, as monarchies and republics sought to control large parts of the world in North and South America and Southeast Asia. Grotius is also recognized for percolating updated natural law and rights theories throughout northern Europe, and for his influence on the classical liberal political theories of Hobbes, Locke, and many others in the 17th and 18th centuries. With its complex legacy, Grotius's main work is still consequential today.

In addition to conferences and other events, this anniversary year of the publication will see a new bibliographical census, to be released this summer, recording and describing nearly 1,000 copies of the first nine editions of De jure belli ac pacis (JBP). The census project was begun several years ago by a research team at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law with funding of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. 

The new work records early printed copies of JBP from across the world. In order to complete the major undertaking, the research team crowdsourced information from a wide array of libraries and collections, soliciting information regarding relevant copies of De jure belli ac pacis in their collections. The Riesenfeld Center was also contacted and we submitted information and images for a copy of the 1642 Blaeu edition held in the Center's collections, which contains the names of several early owners. In addition to other later editions, the Center also holds a 1651 copy of JBP formerly owned by the great scholar Hermann Kantorowicz, whose library is largely held at the Law Library.  

The census project not only located many more copies of JBP than were previously known, but identified annotations in about half the books surveyed and identified 510 former owners of the copies, most of whom were active in the 17th century. The new book promises to shed much light on the ownership histories and individual copies of a monumental work of European legal and political thought.  

    - Ryan Greenwood, Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections