His book, "Deforesting the earth: from pre-history to global crisis" is the most comprehensive account ever written of when, where, and how humans have wrought what is surely the most dramatic change in Earth's surface since the end of the Pleistocene...about every aspect of human use of the forest and the forces that drive this use.
[2] He was the second son of Benjamin Williams and his wife, Ethel Mary Marshell of Swansea, born in Rheanfa House Maternity Hospital.
He studied at University College, Swansea from 1953, and fell under the influence of the geographer Frank Emery.
By that time married, he moved on to St Catharine's College, Cambridge, working for an education diploma.
[3] Professor emeritus from 2002, Williams died of adult respiratory distress syndrome on 26 October 2009.