C. P. Snow
Encyclopedia
Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow of the City of Leicester CBE
(15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English physicist
and novelist who also served in several important positions with the UK government. He is best known for his series of novels known collectively as Strangers and Brothers
, and for "The Two Cultures
", a 1959 lecture in which he laments the gulf between scientists and "literary intellectuals".
to Ada and William Snow (a church organist and choirmaster), Charles was the second of four boys (his brothers being Harold, Eric and Philip Snow
). Snow was educated at the Leicestershire and Rutland College, now the University of Leicester
, and the University of Cambridge, where he became a Fellow of Christ's College
in 1930.
He served in several senior positions in the government of the United Kingdom: as technical director of the Ministry of Labour
from 1940 to 1944; as civil service commissioner from 1945 to 1960; and as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Technology
from 1964 to 1966. He was knighted in 1957 and made a life peer
, as Baron Snow of the City of Leicester, in 1964.
Snow married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson
in 1950. They had one son. Friends included the mathematician G. H. Hardy
, for whom he would write a biographical foreword in A Mathematician's Apology
, the physicist P.M.S. Blackett
, the X-ray crystallographer J.D. Bernal
and the cultural historian Jacques Barzun
. At Christ's he tutored H. S. Hoff – later better known as the novelist William Cooper
. The two became friends, worked together in the civil service and wrote versions of each other into their novels: Snow was the model for the college dean, Robert, in Cooper's Scenes from Provincial Life sequence. In 1960, he gave the Godkin Lectures
at Harvard University, about the clashes between Henry Tizard
and F. Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell), both scientific advisors to British governments around the time of World War II. The lectures were subsequently published as Science and Government. For the academic year 1961 to 1962, Lord and Lady Snow served as Fellows on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University
.
, Death under Sail (1932). In 1975 he wrote a biography of Anthony Trollope
. But he is better known as the author of a sequence of novels entitled Strangers and Brothers
depicting intellectuals in academic and government settings in the modern era. The Masters is the best-known novel of the sequence. It deals with the internal politics of a Cambridge college as it prepares to elect a new master, and has all the appeal of being an insider’s view. The novel depicts concerns other than the strictly academic influencing the decisions of supposedly objective scholars. The Masters and The New Men were jointly awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
in 1954. Corridors of Power added a phrase to the language of the day.
In 1974, Snow's novel In Their Wisdom was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
In The Realists, an examination of the work of eight novelists – Stendhal
, Honoré de Balzac
, Charles Dickens
, Fyodor Dostoevsky
, Leo Tolstoy
, Benito Pérez Galdós
, Henry James
and Marcel Proust
– Snow makes a robust defence of the realistic novel.
The storyline of his novel, The Search, is referenced in Dorothy L. Sayers
's Gaudy Night
, and is used to help elicit the murderer's motive.
called The Two Cultures
, which provoked "widespread and heated debate". Subsequently published as The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, the lecture argued that the breakdown of communication between the "two cultures" of modern society – the sciences and the humanities – was a major hindrance to solving the world's problems. In particular, Snow argues that the quality of education in the world is on the decline. For example, many scientists have never read Charles Dickens
, but artistic intellectuals are equally non-conversant with science. He wrote:
The satirists Flanders and Swann
utilised the first part of this quotation as the basis for their short monologue and song "First and Second Law".
As delivered in 1959, Snow's Rede Lectures specifically condemned the British educational system, as having since the Victorian period over-rewarded the humanities (especially Latin and Greek
) at the expense of scientific education. This in practice deprived British elites (in politics, administration, and industry) of adequate preparation to manage the modern scientific world. By contrast, Snow said, German and American schools sought to prepare their citizens equally in the sciences and humanities, and better scientific teaching enabled these countries' rulers to compete more effectively in a scientific age. Later discussion of The Two Cultures tended to obscure Snow's initial focus on differences between British systems (of both schooling and social class) and those of competing countries.
Other fiction
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
and novelist who also served in several important positions with the UK government. He is best known for his series of novels known collectively as Strangers and Brothers
Strangers and Brothers
Strangers and Brothers is a series of novels by C. P. Snow, published between 1940 and 1974. They deal with – amongst other things – questions of political and personal integrity, and the mechanics of exercising power....
, and for "The Two Cultures
The Two Cultures
The Two Cultures is the title of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. Its thesis was that "the intellectual life of the whole of western society" was split into the titular two cultures—namely the sciences and the humanities—and that this was a major...
", a 1959 lecture in which he laments the gulf between scientists and "literary intellectuals".
Life
Born in LeicesterLeicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
to Ada and William Snow (a church organist and choirmaster), Charles was the second of four boys (his brothers being Harold, Eric and Philip Snow
Philip Snow
Philip Albert Snow is an English born former Fijian cricketer.In 1936 Snow made his debut for the Leicestershire Second XI against the Nottinghamshire Second XI. From 1936 to 1937 Snow played four matches for the Leicestershire Second XI....
). Snow was educated at the Leicestershire and Rutland College, now the University of Leicester
University of Leicester
The University of Leicester is a research-led university based in Leicester, England. The main campus is a mile south of the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park and Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College....
, and the University of Cambridge, where he became a Fellow of Christ's College
Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
in 1930.
He served in several senior positions in the government of the United Kingdom: as technical director of the Ministry of Labour
Ministry of Labour
The Ministry of Labour was a British civil service department established by the New Ministries and Secretaries Act 1916. It was renamed the Employment Department in 1988, and finally abolished in 1995...
from 1940 to 1944; as civil service commissioner from 1945 to 1960; and as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Technology
Minister of Technology
The Minister of Technology was a position in the government of the United Kingdom, sometimes abbreviated as "MinTech". The Ministry of Technology was established by the incoming government of Harold Wilson in October 1964 as part of Wilson's ambition to modernise the state for what he perceived to...
from 1964 to 1966. He was knighted in 1957 and made a life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
, as Baron Snow of the City of Leicester, in 1964.
Snow married the novelist Pamela Hansford Johnson
Pamela Hansford Johnson
Pamela Hansford Johnson, Baroness Snow was an English novelist, playwright, poet, literary and social critic.-Career:...
in 1950. They had one son. Friends included the mathematician G. H. Hardy
G. H. Hardy
Godfrey Harold “G. H.” Hardy FRS was a prominent English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis....
, for whom he would write a biographical foreword in A Mathematician's Apology
A Mathematician's Apology
A Mathematician's Apology is a 1940 essay by British mathematician G. H. Hardy. It concerns the aesthetics of mathematics with some personal content, and gives the layman an insight into the mind of a working mathematician.-Summary:...
, the physicist P.M.S. Blackett
Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett
Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett OM CH FRS was an English experimental physicist known for his work on cloud chambers, cosmic rays, and paleomagnetism. He also made a major contribution in World War II advising on military strategy and developing Operational Research...
, the X-ray crystallographer J.D. Bernal
J. D. Bernal
John Desmond Bernal FRS was one of Britain’s best known and most controversial scientists, called "Sage" by his friends, and known for pioneering X-ray crystallography in molecular biology.-Origin and education:His family was Irish, of mixed Italian and Spanish/Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin...
and the cultural historian Jacques Barzun
Jacques Barzun
Jacques Martin Barzun is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United...
. At Christ's he tutored H. S. Hoff – later better known as the novelist William Cooper
William Cooper (novelist)
Harry Summerfield Hoff was an English novelist, writing under the name William Cooper.-Life:H.S.Hoff was born in Crewe, the son of elementary school teachers , and read natural sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge...
. The two became friends, worked together in the civil service and wrote versions of each other into their novels: Snow was the model for the college dean, Robert, in Cooper's Scenes from Provincial Life sequence. In 1960, he gave the Godkin Lectures
Godkin Lectures
The Edwin L. Godkin Lecture is an annual lecture hosted by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.The lecture series was found in 1903 and named in honor of Edwin L...
at Harvard University, about the clashes between Henry Tizard
Henry Tizard
Sir Henry Thomas Tizard FRS was an English chemist and inventor and past Rector of Imperial College....
and F. Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell), both scientific advisors to British governments around the time of World War II. The lectures were subsequently published as Science and Government. For the academic year 1961 to 1962, Lord and Lady Snow served as Fellows on the faculty in the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
.
Literary work
Snow's first novel was a whodunitWhodunit
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader or viewer is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final...
, Death under Sail (1932). In 1975 he wrote a biography of Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope
Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...
. But he is better known as the author of a sequence of novels entitled Strangers and Brothers
Strangers and Brothers
Strangers and Brothers is a series of novels by C. P. Snow, published between 1940 and 1974. They deal with – amongst other things – questions of political and personal integrity, and the mechanics of exercising power....
depicting intellectuals in academic and government settings in the modern era. The Masters is the best-known novel of the sequence. It deals with the internal politics of a Cambridge college as it prepares to elect a new master, and has all the appeal of being an insider’s view. The novel depicts concerns other than the strictly academic influencing the decisions of supposedly objective scholars. The Masters and The New Men were jointly awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
in 1954. Corridors of Power added a phrase to the language of the day.
In 1974, Snow's novel In Their Wisdom was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
In The Realists, an examination of the work of eight novelists – Stendhal
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
, Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
, Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, Benito Pérez Galdós
Benito Pérez Galdós
Benito Pérez Galdós was a Spanish realist novelist. Considered second only to Cervantes in stature, he was the leading Spanish realist novelist....
, Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
and Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
– Snow makes a robust defence of the realistic novel.
The storyline of his novel, The Search, is referenced in Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy L. Sayers
Dorothy Leigh Sayers was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist. She was also a student of classical and modern languages...
's Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth in her popular series about aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third featuring crime writer Harriet Vane....
, and is used to help elicit the murderer's motive.
The Two Cultures
On 7 May 1959, Snow delivered an influential Rede LectureRede Lecture
The Sir Robert Rede's Lecturer is an annual appointment to give a public lecture, the Sir Robert Rede's Lecture at the University of Cambridge. It is named for Sir Robert Rede, who was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the sixteenth century.-Initial series:The initial series of lectures ranges...
called The Two Cultures
The Two Cultures
The Two Cultures is the title of an influential 1959 Rede Lecture by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow. Its thesis was that "the intellectual life of the whole of western society" was split into the titular two cultures—namely the sciences and the humanities—and that this was a major...
, which provoked "widespread and heated debate". Subsequently published as The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, the lecture argued that the breakdown of communication between the "two cultures" of modern society – the sciences and the humanities – was a major hindrance to solving the world's problems. In particular, Snow argues that the quality of education in the world is on the decline. For example, many scientists have never read Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, but artistic intellectuals are equally non-conversant with science. He wrote:
A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of ThermodynamicsSecond law of thermodynamicsThe second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...
. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'
I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question – such as, What do you mean by mass
MassMass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
, or accelerationAccelerationIn physics, acceleration is the rate of change of velocity with time. In one dimension, acceleration is the rate at which something speeds up or slows down. However, since velocity is a vector, acceleration describes the rate of change of both the magnitude and the direction of velocity. ...
, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' – not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their NeolithicNeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
ancestors would have had.
The satirists Flanders and Swann
Flanders and Swann
The British duo Flanders and Swann were the actor and singer Michael Flanders and the composer, pianist and linguist Donald Swann , who collaborated in writing and performing comic songs....
utilised the first part of this quotation as the basis for their short monologue and song "First and Second Law".
As delivered in 1959, Snow's Rede Lectures specifically condemned the British educational system, as having since the Victorian period over-rewarded the humanities (especially Latin and Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
) at the expense of scientific education. This in practice deprived British elites (in politics, administration, and industry) of adequate preparation to manage the modern scientific world. By contrast, Snow said, German and American schools sought to prepare their citizens equally in the sciences and humanities, and better scientific teaching enabled these countries' rulers to compete more effectively in a scientific age. Later discussion of The Two Cultures tended to obscure Snow's initial focus on differences between British systems (of both schooling and social class) and those of competing countries.
Fiction
Strangers and Brothers series- George PassantGeorge PassantGeorge Passant is the first published of C. P. Snow's series of novels Strangers and Brothers, but the second according to the internal chronology. It was first published under the name Strangers and Brothers....
(first published as Strangers and Brothers), 1940 - The Light and the DarkThe Light and the DarkThe Light and the Dark is the fourth novel in C.P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers series. Set in England in the lead-up to and during World War II, it portrays Lewis Eliot's friendship with the gifted scholar and remarkable individual Roy Calvert, and Calvert's inner turmoil and quest for meaning in...
, 1947 - Time of HopeTime of HopeTime of Hope is the first chronological entry in C. P. Snow's series of novels Strangers and Brothers. It involves the beginning of Lewis Elliott's life in poverty in a small English town at the beginning of the 20th Century. Elliott eventually befriends George Passant, who helps him study to...
, 1949 - The MastersThe Masters (novel)The Masters is the best known of C. P. Snow's series of novels Strangers and Brothers. It involves the election of a new Master at Lewis Elliott's unnamed Cambridge College, which resembles Christ's College where Snow was a fellow....
, 1951 - The New Men, 1954
- Homecomings, 1956
- The Conscience of the Rich, 1958
- The Affair, 1959
- Corridors of Power, 1963
- The Sleep of Reason, 1968
- Last Things, 1970
Other fiction
- Death Under Sail, 1932
- New Lives for Old, 1933
- The Search, 1934
- The Malcontents, 1972
- In Their Wisdom, 1974, shortlisted for the Booker Prize
- A Coat of Varnish, 1979
Non-fiction
- Science and Government, 1961
- The Two Cultures and a Second Look, 1963
- Variety of men, 1967
- The State of Siege, 1968
- Public Affairs, 1971
- Trollope: His Life and Art, 1975
- The Realists, 1978
- The Physicists, 1981
External links
- Seed MagazineSeed (magazine)Seed is an online science magazine published by Seed Media Group. The magazine looks at big ideas in science, important issues at the intersection of science and society, and the people driving global science culture...
article: Are We Beyond the Two Cultures? 7 May 2009