Norton, Augustus Richard 1946- (Augustus R. Norton)

PERSONAL:

Born September 2, 1946, in Brooklyn, NY; son of Augustus, Jr. and Marion Norton; married Deanna J. Lampros (a freelance researcher), December 27, 1969; children: A. Timothy. Education: University of Miami, B.A. (magna cum laude) and M.A., both 1974; attended Defense Language Institute (for Arabic), 1978-79; attended Armed Forces Staff College, 1979-80; University of Chicago, Ph.D., 1984.

ADDRESSES:

Home—South Natick, MA. Office—Department of International Relations, Boston University, 152 Bay State Rd., Boston, MA 02215. E-mail—arn@bu.edu.

CAREER:

Army officer, educator, and writer. U.S. Army career officer, 1966-93, basic training at Fort Gordon, GA, 1966, advanced infantry training at Fort Dix, NJ, 1966, candidate school at Fort Benning, GA, 1966-67, company executive officer at Fort Monmouth, NJ, 1967-68, platoon leader in 173rd Airborne Brigade in Republic of Vietnam, 1968-69, company commander and brigade operations officer of 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, NC, 1969-70, senior adviser to First Battalion of Vietnamese Airborne Division in Vietnam, 1970-71, assistant professor of military science and adjunct professor of political science at University of Illinois at Chicago, 1974-77, seconded to United Nations Truce Supervision Organization headquartered in Jerusalem, served in south Lebanon, 1980-81, stationed at U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY, assistant professor, 1981-84, associate professor of comparative politics and Middle Eastern studies, 1984-90, professor of political science, 1990-93, retired with rank of colonel, 1993; Boston University, MA, professor of international relations, beginning 1993, professor of anthropology, beginning 1996. Career-related activities include director of Civil Society in Middle East program at New York University, 1992-94, distinguished visiting fellow at Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, 2000; and advisor to Iraq Study Group, Baker-Hamilton Commission, 2006.

MEMBER:

American Anthropological Association, American Political Science Association, Middle East Studies Association, Council on Foreign Relations, Conference Group on the Middle East (cofounder), Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Sigma Alpha, Boston Forum on the Middle East (cofounder).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fulbright research professor, Norway, 1989, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan, 1999-2000, Egypt, Bangladesh and Kuwait, 2006-07; Woodrow Wilson national fellow, 1990-2008; International Peace Academy senior research fellow, both 1990-92. Military: Three Bronze Stars; Purple Heart; Combat Infantryman's Badge; Parachutist's Badge; four commendation medals; Air Medal; Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry; Honor Medal. Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1986; MacArthur Foundation, 1989-90, 1991-92; Ford Foundation, 1990-2006; Rockefeller Foundation, 1993-94; Earhart Foundation, 1999-2000; Boston University Humanities Foundation, 1999-2008.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(With Martin H. Greenberg) International Terrorism, Westview (Boulder, CO), 1980.

(With Ronald McLaurin, Lewis Snider, and Paul Jureidini) The Emergence of a New Lebanon, Praeger (New York, NY), 1984.

Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon, University of Texas Press (Austin, TX), 1987.

(With Thomas George Weiss) UN Peacekeepers: Soldiers with a Difference, Foreign Policy Association (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Muhammad Muslih) Political Tides in the Arab World, Foreign Policy Association (New York, NY), 1991.

Amnyat Dar Khavarmiyanah: Jihatgirihayi Nuvin, Bunyadi Mutalaati Iran (Bethesda, MD), 2001.

Hezbollah: A Short History, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2007.

EDITOR

(With Martin H. Greenberg, and contributor) Studies in Nuclear Terrorism: An Annotated Bibliography and Research Guide, G.K. Hall (Boston, MA), 1979.

(With R.A. Friedlander, Martin H. Greenberg, and D.S. Rowe) NATO: A Bibliography and Resource Guide, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1984.

(With Martin H. Greenberg) Touring Nam: The Vietnam War Reader, Morrow (New York, NY), 1984, reprinted as Touring Nam: Vietnam War Stories, Quill (New York, NY), 1985, reprinted, Harper Perennial 1997.

(With Martin H. Greenberg) The International Relations of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Southern Illinois University Press (Carbondale, IL), 1989.

Civil Society in the Middle East(two volumes), Brill (New York, NY), 1995-96, reprinted, 2005.

OTHER

Contributor to periodicals, including Middle East Journal, New Leader, Shofar, and Survival, as well as to newspapers. Member of editorial board, Ethics and International Affairs, 1990—, Current History, 1992—, Global Governance, 1994—, and al-Abhath.

SIDELIGHTS:

Augustus Richard Norton told CA: "After a dozen years of teaching at West Point, a site of incredible natural beauty, I moved to Boston, a city of enormous charm and character. Though the pristine calm of a Hudson valley promontory is certainly a world away from the intellectual archipelago of Boston-Cambridge, both locales offer wonderful inspiration to the writer. Beginning in the early 1990s, I have been possessed with trying to understand whether there is hope for liberal values in an increasingly illiberal world, especially in regions like the Middle East where kings, sultans, and dictators hold sway. Boston is the perfect place for this sort of reflection and writing. Thus far, I have been able to sustain a good ration of optimism, as my recent writing on civil society in the Middle East reflects. As the millennium approaches, I shall be interested to discover if global and regional trends validate my optimism."

After retiring from the Army in 1993, Norton joined the faculty of Boston University, where his research interests have focused on strategies of reform in authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and renewal in reformist Muslim thought. He has written and edited numerous books about the Middle East, primarily focusing its politics, society, and religion. He served as director of Civil Society in Middle East program at New York University from 1992-94 and edited the two volume Civil Society in the Middle East. The first volume provides analyses of political life via civil society and contains studies of Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Tunisia, the West Bank and Gaza. Studies also look at the chances of Arab countries developing democracies. A contributor to the Middle East noted that the essays "provide readable yet well informed assessments of state[-]society relations." Foreign Affairs contributor William B. Quandt wrote that "this volume of excellent essays … is well worth reading."

In his 2007 book, Hezbollah: A Short History, the author "has written the most fluent survey of Hezbollah to date," according to Margeret Hall in her review in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. The book begins by describing early Shi'i politics and the founding of Hezbollah, which means "Party of God," and is an Islamic fundamentalist party group that is dedicated to the eradication of Israel. The author goes on to describe how Hezbollah rose in strength to become the leading group of its kind in the Middle East. Norton also discusses the group's role in Lebanon politics in the twenty-first century. Calling the book a "remarkably thorough, articulate portrait of Hezbollah," a PublishersWeekly contributor went on to note in the same review that the book Hezbollah "is also personal, speckled with anecdotes from more than three decades of experience."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, March, 1989, Robert D. Lee, review of Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon, p. 332; March, 1991, Mehran Tamadonfar, review of The International Relations of the Palestine Liberation Organization, p. 341.

Book World, April 22, 2007, Jonathan Finer, "The Party of God" (review of Hezbollah: A Short History), p. 4.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, December, 1996, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (volumes 1 and 2), p. 682.

Chronicle of Higher Education, May 25, 2007, Richard Byrne, "Author of New History of Hezbollah Sees an Evolving Party and a Need for Dialogue."

Current History, February, 1988, R. Scott Bomboy, review of Amal and the Shi'a, p. 81; January, 1992, William W. Finan, review of Rising Tides in the Middle East: Beyond the Gulf Watershed, p. 42; April, 1995, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (volume 1), p. 188; January, 1996, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (volume 2), p. 44.

Foreign Affairs, September-October, 1995, William B. Quandt, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (volume 1), p. 180; May-June, 2007, L. Carl Brown, review of Hezbollah, p. 156.

International Affairs, spring, 1988, Anthony Hyman, review of Amal and the Shi'a, p. 305; October, 1990, Yezid Sayigh, review of The International Relations of the Palestine Liberation Organization, p. 837.

International Journal of Middle East Studies, February, 1997, Denis J. Sullivan, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (volume 1), p. 124; November, 1997, Clement M. Henry, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (volume 2), p. 623.

Middle East, September, 1995, review of Civil Society in the Middle East, p. 33.

Middle East Journal, spring, 1991, Laurie A. Brand, review of The International Relations of the Palestine Liberation Organization, p. 339; spring, 1995, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (Volume 1), p. 362; spring, 1997, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (Volume 2), p. 311.

Middle East Policy, April, 1995, Bruce Stanley, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (volume 1), p. 128.

Muslim World, April, 1989, Michael C. Hudson, review of Amal and the Shi'a, p. 149; January, 1997, Mahmood Monshipouri, review of Civil Society in the Middle East, p. 54.

Orbis, fall,1987, Daniel Pipes, review of Amal and the Shi'a, p. 393.

Publishers Weekly, February 12, 2007, review of Hezbollah, p. 77.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 1995, review of Civil Society in the Middle East (volume 1), p. 35.

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May-June, 2007, Margeret Hall, review of Hezbollah, p. 70.

ONLINE

Boston University Department of International Relations,http://www.bu.edu/ir/ (December 17, 2007), faculty profile of author.