The Two Cultures

The Two Cultures is the title of an influential 1959 lecture by British scientist and novelist C.P. Snow.

Related Topics:
1959 - British - C.P. Snow

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Its thesis is that the breakdown of communication between the "two cultures" of modern society - sciences and the humanities - was a major hindrance to solving the world's problems. As a trained scientist who was also a successful novelist, Snow was well placed to pose the question, though his ideas were derided by the literary establishment led by F. R. Leavis, in The Spectator who dismissed Snow as a "public relations man" for the scientific establishment. Published in book form, Snow's lecture was nonetheless widely read and discussed on both sides of the Atlantic, leading him to write a follow-up, The Two Cultures: A Second Look, five years later.

Related Topics:
Science - Humanities - Novelist - F. R. Leavis - The Spectator

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The term has entered the general lexicon as a shorthand for differences between what might be called the qualitative and quantitative outlooks on life."The phrase has lived on as a vague popular shorthand for the rift—a matter of incomprehension tinged with hostility—that has grown up between scientists and literary intellectuals in the modern world." (Kimball, see link)

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