In 1961, the Metropolitan Museum in New York paid $2,3000,000 for the painting Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer by Rembrandt. It was the highest price ever paid for a painting. Rembrandt received 500 guilders for the same picture and fought off debtors all his life. Heller examines the painting out of its frame as a representation of history, travelling through Greece, Holland, England and America encompassing life from 500 BC to the present day. The author also wrote Catch 22, Something Happened, Good as Gold and God Knows.