In the Edo period, Japan had its first experience of what one might call "intellectual life" in a pregnant sense of the word: a scene that combined serious intellectual pursuits, from poetry writing to the interpretation of the Confucian classics, with intense social interaction. Edo-period Japan was crisscrossed by networks of poets, scholars, artists and collectors who exchanged information, discussed each other's work, cooperated in collaborative projects, and gossiped about each other. Intellectual life in Edo Japan was a seething cauldron of social interaction and competition, sometimes...