The era of the Great Depression signaled the collapse of the modern industrial world. Sepia photographs of 1933 depicted American bread lines, soup kitchens, and dusty shantytowns. Headlines proclaimed President Roosevelt's New Deal, Hitler's rise to power, and Japan's annexation of Manchuria. Duke Ellington played to packed houses at the Cotton Club while Americans went hungry Secure in upper-class privilege, Charles Stone and his father, Ruben, had little concern for the sociopolitical reforms sweeping the world. In need of a reliable supply of silk material for their family's New York textile business, they established an Asian trading company in China at the outset of World War II. Trapped in Shanghai with cunning European robber barons, marauding Japanese armies, and a bewitching Eurasian woman, they dodged both the murderous Japanese and vengeful Chinese Communists. Silk is a story of love, international business, and vengeance, throughout the bloodiest era in human history.