Annelien de Dijn is an award-winning author and historian. Her research focuses on the history of political thought in Europe and the United States from 1700 to the present, and she also has an interest in antiquity and the Renaissance. Her most recent book Freedom: An Unruly History (Alphabet Publishers) traces the various meanings of freedom from Herodotus to the present and was awarded the 2021 PROSE Prize in Philosophy by the American Association of Publishers.

Professor De Dijn is also the author of French Political Thought from Montesquieu to Tocqueville, published by Cambridge University Press in 2008 and translated into Chinese by Sun Yat-sen University Press in 2018. De Dijn currently teaches at Utrecht University, where she holds a chair in political and intellectual history.