In 1924 he achieved international renown with Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen, in which he presented a dazzling panorama of the cultural history of France and the Netherlands in the age of the Dukes of Burgundy. That same year his critical biography of the great humanist Erasmus appeared, in English as well as in Dutch.

During the 1930s, Huizinga grew increasingly perturbed by the course of events under Communism in the Soviet Union and National-Socialism in Hitler’s Germany. But he believed that he could detect disturbing developments even in his own west European cultural environment: the political system, the run-away economy, the daily press, radio and film, all filled him with grave concern. He wrote about this in his In de schaduwen van morgen (In the Shadow of Tomorrow), a bestseller in Dutch and in many other languages. From then on, he was also considered a cultural critic.

Huizinga gained further international renown with his Homo ludens, in which he framed the bold hypothesis that culture has emerged in all the great civilisations in the form of a game. In particular, the constitution, jurisprudence, warfare, culture in the narrower sense had their origin in serious games. This debatable but masterly study helped to make his name as a cultural philosopher.

His broad outlook and interdisciplinary approach, his concern with intellectual history and his evocative style made him – despite his expressly conservative views – one of the most modern of Dutch historians. The reason why his work was given new importance in the nineties is undoubtedly connected with his study of history for history’s sake: not the wish to alter the present but to gain wisdom through the study of the past. In a sense, this rendered him immune to changing fashion and imbued his work with a timeless and fresh appeal.