When I bought this book, I thought it was going to be a biography of an early Heian court noble. But this book is much more than a simple biography. Robert Borgen examines the historical and cultural context that surrounded Sugawara no Michizane from his great grandfathers time to the half century after his death when he was finally deified as the god of learning and scholarship Tenjin. Each chapter describes a period of Michizane's life using examples from primary source materials and excellent translations of Michizane's own poetry. The final chapter extends the books time-line to the present to include an example of Tenjin Lectures in 1960's Japan. This is a very readable contribution to the important aspect of literary and scholarly excellence of Japan. ( )