Born on 13 September 1943, Johnson was educated at
Richmond School in North Yorkshire and
Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a fellow at Trinity from 1966 to 1974, and at
Selwyn College from 1974 to 1993. He was appointed as a
lecturer in
Oriental studies at the
University of Cambridge in 1974, remaining in that position until 2005. He was the President of
Wolfson College, Cambridge, from 1993 to 2010, and is now an honorary fellow of the college. He was the Director of the Cambridge University Centre of South Asian Studies from 1983 to 2001, and had been a
Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the university from 2002 to 2010. He was the President of the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 2015 to 2018 and is currently serving as the Vice President. He is the general editor of
The New Cambridge History of India, published in 1979. This is a series of self-contained volumes covering various aspects and themes of India's past. ==Select publications ==