The China Collectors: America's Century-Long Hunt for Asian Art Treasures

Thanks to Salem sea captains, Gilded Age millionaires, curators on horseback and missionaries gone native, North American museums now possess the greatest collections of Chinese art outside of East Asia itself. How did it happen? TheChina Collectors is the first full account of a century-long treasure hunt in China from the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion to Mao Zedong's 1949 ascent.

The principal gatherers are mostly little known and defy invention. They included "foreign devils" who br...