Organizing for East Asian Studies in the United States: The Origins of the Council on East Asian Libraries, Assocation for Asian Studies

The development of East Asian studies in the United States is basically a post-World War II phenomenon. Although a few universities offered some courses on East Asia (then referred to as the Far East) before World War II, fXl-fledged study of East Asia, in all the disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, did not develop until after the end of the Second World War. The war in the Pacific, the transformation of Japan into a democracy, the communist revolution in China, and the Korean War contributed to a heightening of the American awareness of the importance of East Asia in a changing world, and of the need for better understanding of their histories and civilizations. The universities, with generous foundation and government support, responded by expanding their teaching and research programs on East Asia, and today, after fifty years, East Asian studies in the United States is probably the largest and the most comprehensive in the Western world.