C.P. Snow The Dynamics of Hope

C. P. Snow was a massive and contentious presence in the 20th century. Readers relished his novels but critics condemned them; his lectures crystallized crucial issues but provoked fierce attacks; and the two phrases he coined, "corridors of power" and "the two cultures," passed into the English language and spread round the world. But since his death in 1980 the full range of his writing has received little attention. This is the first 21st-century book to survey all Snow's novels and his major nonfiction in a clear, lively, informed and sympathetic way. It explores his early genre fiction, his 'Strangers and Brothers' series and his last novels; examines The Two Cultures and Science and Government and the controversies they continue to arouse; considers his biographical accounts of leading authors, scientists and statesmen such as Trollope, Einstein and Churchill; and affirms the continued importance of his work to the world today.

NICOLAS TREDELL is a freelance writer who has published books and essays on writers ranging from Shakespeare to Martin Amis. He is Consultant Editor of Palgrave Macmillan's Essential Criticism series and formerly taught Literature, Drama, Film and Cultural Studies at Sussex University. Like C. P. Snow, he comes from Leicester.