UN Voices

"The authors have cajoled, intrigued, or reassured their 73 'voices' into telling a fascinating story of the UN and its institutions, which is also a story of 73 individual lives, of women and men . . . with their own complicated histories of emigration and education, family relationships and professional choices, hopes and successes." —from the Foreword by Emma Rothschild

"Far from being a distant bureaucracy, the UN is composed of individuals who are reshaped by vital experiences. UN Voices gives international civil servants human faces and shows how ideas drive the grand experiment. It is a fascinating book." —Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

UN Voices presents the human and moving stories of an extraordinary group of individuals who contributed to the economic and social record of the UN's life and activities. Drawing from extensive interviews, the book presents in their own words the experiences of 73 individuals from around the globe who have spent much of their professional lives engaged in United Nations affairs. We hear from secretaries-general and presidents, ministers and professors, social workers and field workers, as well as diplomats and executive heads of UN agencies. Among those interviewed are noted figures such as Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Alister McIntyre, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, and Kurt Waldheim, as well as many less well known UN professional men and women who have made significant contributions to the international struggle for a better world. Their personal accounts also engage their contributions in dealing with such events and issues as the UN's founding, decolonization, the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, human rights, the environment, and September 11, 2001.

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director of its Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies.

Tatiana Carayannis is Research Manager of the United Nations Intellectual History Project.

Louis Emmerij is Senior Research Fellow at The CUNY Graduate Center's Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies.

Richard Jolly is Senior Research Fellow at The CUNY Graduate Center's Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies and Professor Emeritus at the University of Sussex.