Glete spent his entire academic career at Stockholm University, 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, he went on to write the history of this corporation.
Glete also 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.