A career civil servant in Hong Kong who produced books on its history and heritage for the city's Government Information Services, Peter Moss conducts this superb visual reference on Asian furniture design through the centuries, illustrated with 451 color plates. Western-style furniture was a relatively late arrival in Asia, but colonial incursions and the exigencies of history conspired to bring about profound changes, and furniture design in Asia blossomed into a major decorative art. China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Tibet, and the Philippines each developed their own particular designs, from the stepped "staircase" chests of Honshu, Japan, to the gorgeous Qing Dynasty carved six-poster bed from northern China.