Above the CloudsStatus Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility

Status culture of the modern Japanese nobility

Dados Bibliográficos

ID19166277
AutoresTakie Sugiyama Lebra (autor correspondente)
Ano1993
Páginas430
Data de publicação1993-01-29
Open AccessNão
TipoBOOK
PeriódicoAbove the clouds (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraUniversity of California Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1525/california/9780520076006.001.0001
OpenAlexW4301142938
Open LibraryOL1548945M
ISBN9780520076006
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11

This book provides an ethnographic study of the modern Japanese aristocracy. Established as a class at the beginning of the Meiji period, the kazoku ranked directly below the emperor and his family. Officially dissolved in 1947, this group of social elites is still generally perceived as nobility. The author of this book gained entry into this tightly knit circle and conducted more than one hundred interviews with its members. The text weaves together a reconstructive ethnography from their life histories to create an intimate portrait of a remote and archaic world. As the book explores the culture of the kazoku, it places each subject in its historical context, and analyzes the evolution of status boundaries and the indispensable role played by outsiders. But the book is not simply about the elite, but about commoners and how each stratum mirrors the other. Revealing previously unobserved complexities in Japanese society, it also sheds light on the universal problem of social stratification

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Aristocracy (class) · Art · Art history · Elite · Emperor · Ethnography · Genealogy · Meiji Restoration · Nobility · Period (music) · Political science · Politics · Portrait · Social science · Social status · Social stratification · Sociology · Anthropology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · 20th century · Japan · Social conditions · Social life and customs