R. G. Collingwood
Johnston, born in Boston, was educated at Harvard College, where he graduated A. B. in 1958, and later took a Ph.D. at Harvard in 1965, supervised by Crane Brinton. He established his interest in European intellectual history with such works as "The Formative Years of R. G. Collingwood" (1965) and "The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, 1848-1938" (1972). Before publication this had received the Austrian History Prize for best manuscript in Austrian history. At the University of Massachusetts he was the dissertation supervisor of Roderick Stackelberg, two years his junior.