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Paper short abstract

The paper reconsiders Snow's "Two Cultures" thesis. It will focus (1) on the historical interactions between these two knowledge networks and (2) on Snow's view of the gap between a universal, international and progressive endeavour like Science, and a parochial, national and conservative Culture.

Paper long abstract

C. P. Snow's bipolar thesis of the "Two Cultures", and above all his apology for a scientific turn in education, found a fertile ground to flourish in the Post-World War era. Not surprisingly, as World War II had been won in a Physics Lab, rather than in the classical battlefield.

The paper will reconsider Snow's thesis from a historical point of view. It will trace the tensions and dialectical interactions between these two networks of knowledge from the late-18th century to the mid-20th century focusing mainly on one of the premises that underlies Snow's arguments: the gap between a universal, international and progressive endeavour like Science, and a parochial, national and conservative Culture, which, according to Snow, is at the very base of the Humanities.