The Two Cultures

The Two Cultures is a lecture given by C. P. Snow in 1959 that discusses the difference between the arts and sciences. It has sparked a public debate that is still going on. In this edition, Stefan Collini has written an introduction that discusses the history and context of the debate. He also discusses the implications of the debate and its afterlife.

The notion that our society, its education system and its intellectual life, is characterised by a split between two cultures - the arts or humanities on one hand and the sciences on the other - has a long history. But it was C. P. Snow's Rede lecture of 1959 that brought it to prominence and began a public debate that is still raging in the media today. This fiftieth anniversary printing of The Two Cultures and its successor piece, A Second Look (in which Snow responded to the controversy four years later) features an introduction by Stefan Collini, charting the history and context of the debate, its implications and its afterlife. The importance of science and technology in policy run largely by non-scientists, the future for education and research, and the problem of fragmentation threatening hopes for a common culture are just some of the subjects discussed.
Review:
'Both the lecture itself and the controversy it spawned are complex phenomena, and in his editions of Snow's lecture and of the most famous response to it, by the literary critic F. R. Leavis, Stefan Collini has carefully and skillfully disentangled the many strands. The tale he tells is instructive in many respects - and perhaps more important now than it was when Leavis gave his response, fifty years ago.' Alan Jacobs, Books and Culture