This is a discussion of the contribution and effects of East Asian art on American culture. Warren Cohen portrays the assembling of the great American collections of East Asian art and explains how this art became part of the cultural consciousness of the people of the USA, transforming their culture into something more complex than the Western civilization brought from Europe. Cohen tells of art collectors, dealers and historians, of museums and curators, of art and imperialism, art and politics, and art as an instrument of foreign policy. The book demonstrates how art collecting interacts with international politics and business. The recent decline in American economic power, the author argues, was first obvious in the art world when American collectors found themselves unable to compete with their Japanese and Hong Kong counterparts.