[1] He specialized in English medieval history, especially studies that emphasized the interrelationship of England within the Anglo-Norman realm and the development of administrative kingship.
He graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1951, served in the United States Air Force during the Korean War, and received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1958.
In May 1982, Hollister and his graduate students founded the Charles Homer Haskins Society, dedicated to the study of Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and early Angevin history.
However, his biography of that monarch was delayed by the loss of the manuscript, note cards and research library in the Santa Barbara wildfire of 1990.
[4] Hollister's Henry I biography was incomplete at the time of his death, but his doctoral student, Amanda Clark Frost, finished and published it with the Yale University Press in 2001.