Dr. Norton is professor of anthropology and international relations at Boston University. He is the author of Amal and the Shia: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987, Arabic edition: Beirut: Dar al-Maklud, 1987), and the editor of Civil Society in the Middle East, two volumes (Leiden, New York and Koln: E.J. Brill, 1995, 1996) He is beginning a sequel to Amal and the Shia in which he will consider the political reconstruction of Lebanon, and especially the role of the Shii community.