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 the members of Uchiyama's salon were intellectuals behind the Chinese Communist Party, then an illegal organization in Shanghai. The ability of Uchiyama and his bookstore to transcend intellectual divisions and borders makes his story of unique inter-cultural interest. And the context of Uchiyama's efforts to bring peace between his home country of Japan and his chosen home of China is one of the most intellectually uplifting stories of the 20th century.