Kaleidoscope: The Uchiyama Bookstore and its Sino-Japanese Visionaries

In the 1920s, a Japanese businessman set up a bookshop in the city of Shanghai which changed the course of history by providing a forum for Chinese and Japanese intellectuals to meet and discuss the great issues of the day. Now, Naoko Kato's powerful book Kaleidoscope looks at the story of Uchiyama Kanzo and his bookstore from a fresh perspective, breaking it down into a series of reflections that shift as the years turn.

Uchiyama's bookstore was a fulcrum of Sino-Japanese contacts, many of...