The Saturday Essay; Will the Sectarian War of Arts and Science Ever End? When C P Snow Put Forward the Idea of Science as Culture 40 Years Ago, He Did It in the Spirit of a Peacemaker

Ree, Jonathan, The Independent (London, England)

WHEN CP SNOW gave his notorious lecture on "The Two Cultures" at Cambridge University in May 1959, he did not shrink from giving offence; but he tried to give it impartially. His topic was the division between the arts and the sciences, and he ridiculed not only the smug literary intellectuals with their bottomless ignorance about the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but also the dull, unimaginative scientists who thought it frightfully risky to "try a little Dickens". In Britain at least, the "two cultures" had settled into a state of cultural cold war, making complacent jokes about each other and exchanging ignorant insults. Both sides would suffer, Snow argued, and both were …

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Publication information: Article title: The Saturday Essay; Will the Sectarian War of Arts and Science Ever End? When C P Snow Put Forward the Idea of Science as Culture 40 Years Ago, He Did It in the Spirit of a Peacemaker. Contributors: Ree, Jonathan - Author. Newspaper title: The Independent (London, England). Publication date: March 13, 1999. Page number: 7. © 2009 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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