William Michael Johnston (born 1936), known as Will Johnston, is an American historian whose field is European intellectual history. He publishes his work under the name of William M. Johnston, partially in close collaboration with translators. Since retiring from the

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medica ...

, in 1999, he has been a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

and now lives in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Life

Johnston, born in Boston, was educated at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, where he graduated A. B. in 1958,''Harvard Alumni Bulletin'' vol. 68 (1965), p. 28 and later took a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

at Harvard in 1965,Will Johnston
at umass.edu, accessed 27 September 2013 supervised by

Crane Brinton Clarence Crane Brinton (Winsted, Connecticut, 1898 – Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 7, 1968) was an American historian of France, as well as an historian of ideas. His most famous work, ''The Anatomy of Revolution'' (1938) likened the dyna ...

.Roderick Stackelberg, ''Memory and History: Recollections of a Historian of Nazism'' (2011), p. 88: "I chose as my dissertation supervisor the young intellectual historian William M. Johnston, who had graduated from Harvard College two years after me and had already completed his Ph.D. under 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 Roderick, Rodrick or Roderic (Proto-Germanic ''* Hrōþirīks'', from ''* hrōþiz'' "fame, glory" + ''* ríks'' "king, ruler") is a Germanic name, recorded from the 8th century onward.Förstemann, ''Altdeutsches Namenbuch'' (1856)740 Its Old Hi ...

, two years his junior. Johnston retired from his university's history department in 1999 with the title of Professor Emeritus, shortly before completing his two-volume ''Encyclopedia of Monasticism'' (2000). He later migrated to Australia.

Major publications

*''The Formative Years of R. G. Collingwood'' (Harvard University Archives, 1965) *''The Austrian Mind: an Intellectual and Social History, 1848-1938'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972) *''Vienna, Vienna: the Golden Age, 1815-1914'' (1981) *''In Search of Italy: Foreign Writers in Northern Italy since 1800'' (1987) *''Celebrations: the Cult of Anniversaries in Europe and the United States Today'' (1991) *''Recent Reference Books in Religion: a guide for students'' (1996) *''Encyclopedia of Monasticism'', two volumes (Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000) *''Zur Kulturgeschichte Österreichs und Ungarns 1890-1938'', translated by Otmar Binder (Vienna, Cologne, Graz, 2015)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnston, Will 1936 births 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Harvard College alumni Living people University of Massachusetts faculty American male non-fiction writers