Starshadw at aol.com writes: > I find it interesting that Paarfi - a historian (who is supposed to be > relatively unbiased) has a patron. Patronage implies that one must please > said patron in order to continue to to be well-fed, housed, entertained, > accepted in polite company, etc. > > Do we not then have to take everything from the Preface on with an enormous > grain of salt? At first I thought, "Well, given the events he's writing > about are pre-Interregnum, how bad can it be" and then I reminded myself how > long-toothed Dragaerans are and hence it is still an issue. > > If all "historians" such as Paarfi (as opposed to chroniclers who are simply > writing down their impressions and observations as they witness events) must > have patrons to suppose their work, then is any "history" written by > Drgaerans accurate? And of course, the trouble with chronicles is that they > only show one small part of the larger picture. Interesting idea of patronage. Of course, if the patron *wants* an honest history, that would seem to be a *good* influence. Just like a publishers wanting a biased work (or the Texas school board wanting a biased work) can today. So I'm not sure things would really be any different from the way they are now. At least in this world, patronage didn't last much into the wide marketing of books, did it? At least as a primarily financial relationship? What's the book technology in Dragaera at various periods? Are they doing printing yet? Is literacy widespread? I seem to remember that it is. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / New TMDA anti-spam in test John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/ New Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info