Jan Glete (1 September 1947 – 13 July 2009) was a Swedish historian. He was professor of history at the Stockholm University, specializing in 20th-century Swedish industry and banking as well as the connection between state formation and naval history in early modern Europe.

Glete spent his entire academic career at the University of Stockholm, where he had taken his bachelor's degree and where he defended his doctoral thesis Kreugerkoncernen och Boliden in 1975.

Having been born in Västerås, Sweden, where his father was employed by ASEA, the (Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget), he went on to write the history of this company. Glete developed a passionate interest in maritime history, which he combined with an interest in the state-building process in the early modern period, publishing several books on this topic in English using a comparative perspective.

He served as vice-chairman of Sjöhistoriska Samfundet from 1993 until his death from cancer at the age of 61 in July 2009, Stockholm, Sweden. He was survived by his wife Sang Kum Yeo and daughter Jihi.

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw many ambitious European rulers develop permanent armies and navies. War and the State in Early Modern Europe examines this military change as a central part of the political, social and economic transformation of early modern Europe. This important study exposes the economic structures necessary for supporting permanent military organisations across Europe. Large armed forces could not develop successfully without various interest groups who needed protection and were willing to pay for it. Arguing that early fiscal-military states were in fact protection-selling enterprises, the author focuses on: Spain, the Dutch Republic and Sweden the role of local elites the political and organisational aspects of this new military development War and the State in Early Modern Europe offers an impressive insight into the conditions surrounding the growth of military organisations in Europe, and will appeal to European and Military historians alike.