Prussian conservative historian.

As a student at the universities of Breslau, Jena, and Göttingen, Leo joined the extreme revolutionary wing of the students' association. But, after reading Edmund Burke and Albrecht Haller and after a friend of his murdered the reactionary dramatist August von Kotzebue, Leo rejected radicalism and grew increasingly conservative. He taught at the universities of Berlin and Halle (1826–78).

As a historian Leo was a pioneer in acknowledging the importance of social and geographical factors in the development of a state. His first major work was Geschichte der italienischen Staaten (1829–32; “History of the Italian States”). His most ambitious work, Lehrbuch der Universalgeschichte (1839–44; “Textbook of Universal History”), was published in six volumes. Leo was a philologist as well as a historian, and he published several books on ancient Germanic languages. Leo was a leading opponent of the Prussian historian Leopold von Ranke.