Part I of the Handbook contains three chapters which serve to introduce and contextualize the rest of the contributions in the volume as well as the field itself. Of course, an overview might be accomplished in one essay. But Intercultural Discourse and Communication (IDC) can be conceived of in many ways (and indeed is referred to in many ways), so we need views of the field that approach it from a number of perspectives. The three views represented in this section differ largely in the scope of the type of IDC work considered, although there is some overlap as one would expect. But they are also complementary in the principles used to organize each essay: critical, historical, and typological.