East Asia encompasses the incredibly varied modern states of China, Japan, and Korea. In many ways, it is a difficulty and arbitrary geographic distinction rather than any sort of a unified cultural or political unit. However, in some ways it is also a useful distinction, and it is these aspects which we will focus on. Students will gain a broad‐based historical and cultural understanding of East Asia in its global context, beginning with the origins of this culture, and including its inter‐regional connections and its encounters with the West. In this way, this course addresses the preconception that East Asia existed unchanged until the arrival of Europeans. The theme of this course is “Contact and Change,” which will afford an opportunity to examine two of the principal challenges facing historians: accounting for change and understanding people and societies separated from us by space and time.