Norton is a graduate of the Universities of Miami and Chicago.

He now lives in Massachusetts.

After being commissioned from the ranks in 1967, Norton served two combat tours in Vietnam as an airborne infantry officer. He later served as an unarmed United Nations observer with UNTSO in southern Lebanon. In 1981, he joined the faculty of the West Point, where he became a professor of political science. He also taught West Point's only anthropology course. He retired in 1993 as Colonel in order to join the faculty of Boston University. In 2006 he was an advisor the Iraq Study Group, also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission.

Norton has also written, co-authored or edited more than ten books, as well as contributing to leading newspapers and magazines. His books include:

• A Short History, 2007
• Reviewed in Max Rodenbeck, " Lebanon's Agony" The New York Review of Books 54/11 (28 June 2007) : 10-14
• Civil Society in the Middle East, 2 vols., 1995, 1996, 2005
• Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon, 1987