Theoretical Overview.- Cycles and Cycling.- Before Empire: State Formation in China and Proto-states Elsewhere.- The Creation of Stable Dynastic Empires in East and Southeast Asia.- High Empire: The Glory Days of Early Medieval Eastern Asia.- The Rise of Central Asia: Coastal Golden Ages Increasingly Threatened by Conquest Dynasties from the Deep Interior.- The Mongol Conquests of China and Korea and Invasion of Japan.- Long-lived Dynasties: Ming and Its Contemporaries.- The Early Modern Period in the East Asian World-System.- Lessons: Factors Driving the Rise and Fall of Dynasties.- Comparisons: Cycles and Empires in Agrarian Worlds.- What East Asia's Dynamics Teach Us about Climate, Society, and Change in the Modern and Future World.