I am not a historian, and as such I found this to be an interesting review of the arc of the relationship between patron and scholar, the evolution of the latte

I am not a historian, and as such I found this to be an interesting review of the arc of the relationship between patron and scholar, the evolution of the latter into what we now call an expert and an attendant change of scholarship into patron-directed propaganda. Which isn't surprising, I suppose. You couldn't eat scholarship, so one was certainly beholden to one's patron. But it's more nuanced than the personal relationship; sociologically over time institutions develop out of these relationships with complex motivations and histories. Out of good things more nebulous structures may evolve, over time. A good grist-for-the-mill read, I thought.