The purpose of this work is to present a comprehensive view of Hugo Grotius's main work De Jure Belli ac Pacis, a view based on the text. Its main argument shows that, far from being a bookish theoretician indulging himself in the construction of an abstract system, Grotius had in mind, above all, a practically oriented treatise aiming about all at 'regulating and restraining war'. At the same time the authors take the opportunity to re-examine the historiography of international law with its anachronistic Eurocentric bias.