Remembering Bronson Edwards Percival

Bronson (Bron) Edwards Percival,76, diplomat, professor, and author, passed away on December 25, 2024.

Born in Bremen, Germany, Bron grew up in a U.S. diplomatic family assigned to embassies in Kabul, Paris, Bremen and Bonn, Germany. Returning home to high school in Virginia, he participated in team sports and on his school’s “It’s Academic” team.

Idealistic and political, Bron attended the University of California, Berkeley, then emerging as the political center of college campuses. He graduated with an A.B. in International Relations, earning membership in Phi Beta Kappa. While doing post graduate work in international relations at the University of Chicago, he travelled to India to study Hindi and do research. This interest in South Asia led to Bron’s 30-year career in the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Service Political Officer beginning in 1974. He reported from countries including Lebanon, Iraq, Malaysia, Indonesia and The Netherlands. He was an expert on terrorism and Islamic radicalism in Southeast Asia, and South and Southeast Asia maritime security.

Bron received his master’s degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College in Washington, D.C. and from 1999-200l the State Department assigned Bron as a professor to the Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island where he taught a course he created on Strategy and Policy.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks brought Bron back to Washington, to focus the State Department’s Intelligence and Research Bureau on the new terrorist threat. He remained there until 2004 when he retired from the State Department.

In his post-retirement, Bron continued teaching, writing and advising, including as senior advisor for Southeast Asia at the Center for Strategic Studies at the Center for Naval Analysis, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, the East-West Center, and School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. His book, The Dragon Looks South: China and Southeast Asia in the New Century was published in 2007. He spent a decade coordinating a course on Southeast Asia for the Foreign Service Institute.

Bron met his wife when he was two and Susan was one. Susan’s father, also a Foreign Service Political Officer, briefed Bron’s father on Kabul Afghanistan from where Susan’s family had recently returned and Bron’s family was being posted. They met again in their late twenties and have been together for forty-five years, 42 married. They have a daughter Barbara of whom they are very proud.

Finally retiring in 2017, Bron and Susan bought a home on the Chester River in historic Chestertown, Maryland. Bron enjoyed playing tennis and bocce and reserved ample time for his beloved garden and travel. He continued his longtime connection with the Washington Map Society of which he was president 2004-2005. He was a passionate collector of maps of South and Southeast Asia, England’s Essex and Cheshire counties, Connecticut and the Chesapeake Bay. He also served on the Democratic Central Committee for Kent County, Maryland. A voracious reader and known locally for wearing a fedora, Bron was well-known in the local coffee bars and The Bookplate. He loved warm weather, beaches and global travel with his family.

Bron is survived by his wife Susan, their daughter Barbara A. Percival of Silver Spring, Maryland, two sisters, a brother, five nieces and nephews and their families.

A celebration of life is planned for April 12, 1:30 pm, at Emmanuel Church in Chestertown, Maryland. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Kent and Queen Anne’s Rescue Squad: Kentrescuesquad.com or Shore Rivers: Shorerivers.org.