Nakane served as visiting professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago at the invitation of Sol Tax from 1959 to 1960 and as Visiting Lecturer in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London at the invitation of Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf in 1960–1961.

[3] In 1970, Nakane became the first female professor at the University of Tokyo, where she served as Director of the Institute of Oriental Culture from 1980 to 1982.

She was also an honorary member of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

Nakane's work focuses on cross-cultural comparisons of social structures in Asia, notably Japan, India, and China.

In this book, Nakane characterizes Japan as "a vertical society" where human relations are based on "place" (shared space) instead of "attribute" (qualification).