Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Holst, Hermann Eduard von

HOLST, Hermann Eduard von, historian, b. in Fellin, Livonia, 19 June, 1841. He studied history in the universities of Dorpat and Heidelberg, and was made doctor at the latter in 1865. In 1866 he settled in St. Petersburg, but in consequence of a pamphlet on an attempt on the life of the emperor, which he published at Leipsic while travelling abroad, his return to Russia was forbidden. He decided to emigrate to the United States in July of the same year, and settled in New York, where, in the autumn of 1869, he became assistant editor, under Alexander J. Schem, of the “Deutsch-Amerikanisches Conversations-Lexicon.” His German work on “Louis XIV.” appeared in Leipsic soon after he arrived in the United States. He subsequently became a contributor to several American journals. He was called to a professorship of history in Strasburg university in 1872, and in 1874 was given the chair of modern history at Freiburg. Afterward he revisited the United States, and lectured at Johns Hopkins university. His principal work is “Verfassung und Demokratie der vereinigten Staaten von Amerika,” the first volume of which appeared in Berlin and Düsseldorf in 1873, and the second in 1878; translated by J. J. Lalor and A. B. Mason under the title “The Constitutional and Political History of the United States, 1750-1833” (5 vols., Chicago. 1876-'85). He is also the author of the life of John C. Calhoun in the “American Statesmen” series (Boston, 1882), and “The Constitutional Law of the United States of America” (Chicago, 1887).