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I read this to help contextualise The World of Genji. It was published in the 1960s, & there is the sense that it was written by an American to explain Japanese history to a largely Western audience. Some of the ideas are dated, but that can't be helped. I still found it an illuminating, useful supplementary read, especially the chapter, "The Cult of Beauty". Courtly life in the Heian-era makes 21st-century self-commodification seem quite tame.

Apologies for the terrible pic and the wall of text @saresmoore but it gives some insight into the lives of the peasants vs the nobility during the Heian-era. #Genji @Lindy

I'm reading the tagged book for some context into the world of Genji and the thing that intrigues me the most is the absolute stratification of society based on rank. I thought this quote would be interesting for fellow #Genji readers.

The association of a high(er) rank with a person's moral character is of course one of the worst things about social hierarchy.