Patrons of Enlightenment

"In Patrons of Enlightenment, Edward G. Andrew examines the relationships between philosophers and their patrons, with particular focus on eighteenth-century thinkers in England, France, and Scotland. He argues that the ideal of intellectual autonomy or independence of thought, fostered by the growing readership of the time, was largely fabricated by thinkers who depended upon royal or aristocratic patronage. Although no scholar or philosopher subsisted by the labours of his or her pen, many claimed that the age of patronage had passed or had been taken over by the booksellers. An intellectual marketplace had supposedly replaced hierarchy in the republic of patron-client relationships in this area casts doubt on the common view that republicanism was the dominant ideology of the Enlightenment."--BOOK JACKET.