"Sarah Handler has written a true cultural history of Chinese furniture. Her book is a highly erudite blend of art history and social history, yet with a structure as transparent and elegant as that of a fine piece of Ming-style furniture."--Klaas Ruitenbeek, Louise Hawley Stone Chair of Far Eastern Art, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, and author of "Carpentry and Building in Late Imperial China: A Study of the Fifteenth-Century Carpenter's Manual Lu Ban jing