In 2005, a group of studio furnituremakers from China, Canada, and the United States gathered at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, for a three-day intensive exploration of historical Chinese furniture. Inspired by China documents the exploration that took place during the workshop and demonstrates the provocative results launched in response.

This book brings together new work by 22 preeminent North American and Chinese studio furnituremakers in a way that both celebrates each individual's work and looks at the experience of inspiration as a unifying process. Essays provide historical background from both Chinese and American furniture perspectives. Illustrations showcase both historical pieces of Chinese furniture and their contemporary offspring that resulted from the Inspired by China workshop. Ranging from respectful reinterpretations of chairs, stools, and tables to sculptural reimaginings of purpose and structure, these pieces of furniture combine to tell an eloquent story of cross-cultural interchange and community.