Ian Williams is a prolific writer who has been covering the United Nations, among other subjects, since 1989. He has personally known four secretary generals, and innumerable diplomats and officials worldwide.

In 1995, for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, while he was president of the UN Correspondents’ Association, Williams wrote UN for Beginners, on which his new book UNtold is based.

An associate professor at Bard Center for Globalization and International Affairs, he lectures on the UN and the Responsibility to Protect.

Born in Liverpool, UK, Williams played in the rubble of bomb sites left over from the war that inspired the founding of the United Nations, and since then has reported from other war zones, but hopes the UN will spare him from reporting on World War III.

Williams has won awards for his exposés of UN malfeasance but is supportive of its mission and quick to defend it from detractors.