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A review by paulogonzalez
The Two Cultures by Stefan Collini, C.P. Snow
3.0
Snow delivered 7 May 1959 a lecture at Cambridge: "The Two cultures and the scientific revolution", and immediately after a book was printed. The book I am talking about here is a second and expanded version, "The Two Cultures: A Second Look".
The book has an introduction by Stefan Collini, almost the same lenght than Snow's text. He tells a pre-history of the debate for a whole perspective, Snow's own life, the developement of the idea of the "two cultures", reactions and controversies after the lecture, or the changing map of the academic disciplines with the current increasing specialisation.
With the "two cultures" Snow alludes to the 'literary intellectuals' and the 'natural scientists', between whom he claimed to find a profound mutual suspicion and incomprehension. However, in the originial lecture he was isolating only one small corner of the situation: he was talking primarily to educators and those being educated.
He explains why he selected that particular word, and in addition he says that «the reasons for the existence of the two cultures are many, deep, and complex, some rooted in social histories, some in personal histories, and some in the inner dynamic of the different kinds of mental activity themselves». Besides, Snow considers the situation in England, contrasting mainly with those of the United States and of the U.S.S.R.
The book has an introduction by Stefan Collini, almost the same lenght than Snow's text. He tells a pre-history of the debate for a whole perspective, Snow's own life, the developement of the idea of the "two cultures", reactions and controversies after the lecture, or the changing map of the academic disciplines with the current increasing specialisation.
With the "two cultures" Snow alludes to the 'literary intellectuals' and the 'natural scientists', between whom he claimed to find a profound mutual suspicion and incomprehension. However, in the originial lecture he was isolating only one small corner of the situation: he was talking primarily to educators and those being educated.
He explains why he selected that particular word, and in addition he says that «the reasons for the existence of the two cultures are many, deep, and complex, some rooted in social histories, some in personal histories, and some in the inner dynamic of the different kinds of mental activity themselves». Besides, Snow considers the situation in England, contrasting mainly with those of the United States and of the U.S.S.R.