Within this environment, the more traditional ideals of the university – as a community of scholars working and thinking independently of government, business and organised labour sectors – can easily be lost. As Richard Hil demonstrates in his book Whackademia, the experience of being an academic in a humanities department is increasingly alienating. Much humanities research has very little saleable value in the marketplace, which is in part why the British government now requires undergraduates enrolled in humanities degrees to pay their own way.