This book is about the nature of things we call art—how we study them and why we should bother with them. Part One is a long study outlining a theory of art based on anthropology, philosophy, and art history. The argument is that things have mostly cognitive rather than visual significance, and that their basic forms and intentions are determined by their position in the sociocultural situation.

Part Two consists of seven previously published articles which analyze the specific issues raised in the above study, such as naturalism versus abstraction, art and identity, and aestheticism. Most of these issues are discussed in the context of pre-Columbian art, brought into the discussion of Western art theory in a major way for the first time, hopefully beginning the process of obliterating the excessive isolation of these fields from one another.

The two parts of this book are meant to intertwine anthropological and art historical theory with a set of global examples in order to create a new way of looking at the things we call art.