Roger Lawrence Williams

Roger Lawrence Williams (June 22, 1923 – July 4, 2017), was an American historian with major interests in French political history, particularly the Second Empire associated with Napoleon III.

In later years he developed a keen interest in botany, and wrote extensively on that subject, especially its early history in France.

[2][5] Upon Williams' death, a colleague wrote of him: "Undergraduates were attracted by his high standards, carefully crafted lectures, and subtle humor.

His graduate students, who now live and work throughout the United States and Canada, fondly recall his gifts as advisor and mentor.

The first book, Gaslight and Shadow, adopted a style followed by many of his later works: he "abandons the more orthodox chronological approach in favor of a mosaic ... of ten vignettes chosen to portray the many facets of the Second Empire".

In a vein similar to Gaslight and Shadow, Manners and Murders in the World of Louis-Napoleon consists of a series of chapters, each "concerned with a single crime and its trial".