ABSTRACT
Academic interests in intercultural communication began in the 1950s and 1960s. Riding the wave of globalization and the post-World War II idealism and optimism that pervaded the United States, early intercultural communication studies were motivated by humanistic, as well as practical, interests in generating knowledge that could help promote better understanding and more effective communication between individuals of differing cultural upbringings. This early focus on micro-level interface continues to define the domain of intercultural communication today.
