This book documents an extraordinary exhibition organized and presented by Mingei International Museum to inaugurate its new facility dedicated to furthering the understanding of arts of people from all cultures of the world. Included are some of the finest objects from the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City and other major public and private collections from the east and west coasts of the United States - many published for the first time. Their rich and wide range covers paintings, quilts, coverlets, weathervanes, cigar store figures, ships' figureheads, whirligigs and shop signs from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries.