Karl Wenceslaus Rodecker von, a historian and politician, was born at Freiburg in 1775, and was educated for the law. At first he was known only as a young and eloquent professor in the university of his native town. But it was not very long before Rotteck appeared as a liberal politician. In that capacity he soon became prominent. Many of the periodicals of his party were established and maintained by his aid. Many of the abuses of the constitution were attacked by his pen. Among others, his pamphlets against standing armies, against the proposal to abolish the university of Freiburg, and on representative bodies, won for him the gratitude of his faction. He received the honour in 1819 of being the representative of his university in the first chamber of the states of Baden. Nor when the government began to persecute him did his popularity decline. His expulsion from the representative ship of the university was retrieved by his being made in 1831 the member for the city of Freiburg. His loss of his professorship was more than compensated by the presents and addresses that came to him from the most distant provinces of Germany. He even gained the respect of his opponents; and just before his death in 1840 he was restored to his chair. The work on which the fame of Rotteck now rests is his Allgemeine Weltgeschichte (German Universal History), originally published in 9 vols., in 1813-27. Its popularity has been very great. Almost every German family possesses a copy. There are few European languages into which it has not been translated. So long ago as 1841 the fifteenth edition was called for; and it was published, with a continuation by K. H. Hermes, in 11 vols. 8vo, 1841-45.