Science, Scientific Intellectuals and British Culture in The Early Atomic Age, 1945-1956: A Case Study of George Orwell, Jacob Bronowski, J.G. Crowther and P.M.S. Blackett Ralph John Desmarais A Dissertation Submitted In Fulfilment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Doctor Of Philosophy Imperial College London Centre For The History Of Science, Technology And Medicine 2 Abstract This dissertation proposes a revised understanding of the place of science in British literary and political culture during the early atomic era. It builds on recent scholarship that discards the cultural pessimism and alleged ‘two-cultures’ dichotomy which underlay earlier histories. Countering influential narratives centred on a beleaguered radical scientific Left in decline, this account instead recovers an early postwar Britain whose intellectual milieu was politically heterogeneous and culturally vibrant. It argues for different and unrecognised currents of science and society that informed the debates of the atomic age, most of which remain unknown to historians. Following a contextual overview of British scientific intellectuals active in mid-century, this dissertation then considers four individuals and episodes in greater detail. The first shows how science and scientific intellectuals were intimately bound up with George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four (1949). Contrary to interpretations portraying Orwell as hostile to science, Orwell in fact came to side with the views of the scientific rig h t through his active wartime interest in scientists’ doctrinal disputes; this interest, in turn, contributed to his depiction of Ingsoc, the novel’s central fictional ideology. Jacob Bronowski’s remarkable transition from pre-war academic mathematician and Modernist poet to a leading postwar BBC media don is then traced. A key argument is that rather than publicly engaging with actual relations of science and the British state, Bronowski actively downplayed the perils of nuclear weapons, instead promoting an idealist vision of science through his scientific humanism philosophy. Finally, the political activism of J.G. Crowther and P.M.S. Blackett are analysed, Crowther through his chairmanship of the Communist-linked British Peace Committee, and Blackett through his controversial book Military and Political Consequences of Atomic Energy (1948). In neither case, as might be expected, did their nuclear politics stem from scientific ideology but rather from personal convictions. 3 4 Table Of Contents Page Chapter 1: 7 Rethinking the Place Of ‘Science’ in Early Cold War Britain Chapter 2: 25 Scientific Intellectuals in their Cold War Contexts, 1945-1956 Chapter 3: 45 George Orwell, Science and Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1942-1949 Chapter 4: 63 Jacob Bronowski: A Humanist Intellectual for an Atomic Age, 1946-1956 Chapter 5: 89 Warring for Peace: J.G. Crowther and the British Peace Committee, 1948-1952 Chapter 6: 109 ‘Atomic Heretic’: P.M.S. Blackett, Science and Nuclear Politics, 1945-1950 Conclusion 145 Appendix: 153 Early Cold War Scientific Intellectuals in Britain (1945-1956) Bibliography Primary Sources: Unpublished Collections 157 Primary Sources: Periodicals and Daily Press 160 Primary Sources: Other Published Material 161 Secondary Sources 171 5 Acknowledgements This dissertation benefitted from the help of many individuals and institutions over the past several years. But my greatest appreciation and thanks go to my supervisor David Edgerton whose continuing direction, advice and encouragement were invaluable to helping bring this work to fruition. His patient mentoring, kindness and friendship throughout also served to make this undertaking considerably more enriching and enjoyable than I could have hoped for. I am indebted to Pat Thane for her initial advice and enthusiasm which led to me begin this doctoral research. During my time at Imperial College, I gained immense intellectual support and stimulus from many hours of discussions and shared readings with Andrew Mendelsohn, Jessica Reinisch, Max Stadler, Alex Oikonomou and Waqar Zaidi, which fed into my research in countless ways. I am also very grateful for the time and valuable feedback offered by colleagues and others who read portions of this dissertation during its draft stages, especially Allison Dube, Andrew Mendelsohn, Guy Ortolano, Geert Somsen and Waqar Zaidi. I am grateful for the doctoral funding provided by the AHRC for this project, and for the generous help given me by many archivists. In particular I wish to thank Colin Harris (Bodleian Library), Bridget Gillies (University of East Anglia) and Erin O’Neill (BBC Written Archives Centre) for their continuing assistance. I would also like to thank William Graves and Elizabeth al Qadhi (née Strachey) for access to their fathers’ papers and correspondence, and to Patricia Langdon-Davies for her late husband’s published and unpublished material. I also benefitted enormously from conversations with Peter Davison concerning George Orwell, with John Vice regarding Jacob Bronowski, and with John Maddox on his recollections of science journalism, all of whom I sincerely thank. Lastly I wish to thank my family for their ongoing support. Ellie and Rebecca never wavered in their enthusiastic contributions to dinner conversations which so often turned on the topic of scientific intellectuals and their goings on. But my greatest debt is to my wife Sarah, without whose love I could not have begun or finished this work. This dissertation is dedicated to them. 6 Chapter 1 Rethinking the Place of ‘Science’ in Early Cold War Britain Introduction According to an influential body of historical scholarship, British high culture—especially in relation to literary and scientific intellectuals—was moribund throughout the first decade following the Second World War. Historians were agreed on the main reasons: the creative influence of high modernism was at an ebb; hopes of support for the arts in Britain’s new welfare state had been dashed; the social relations of science movement had come to an abrupt end at the close of the war; and the scientific radical contingent at the forefront of this movement had become politically isolated amidst growing East-West tensions and anti- communist sentiment. Another, and equally striking feature of these historical accounts is the sense that literary and scientific intellectuals occupied separate spheres. On the one hand, literary and general social histories implied that the importance of scientists lay exclusively with their laboratory achievements; scientists, unlike their counterparts in the humanities, were apparently never associated with any public intellectual role in the early postwar era. On the other, historical scholarship dedicated to scientists’ public engagement with social, cultural and political issues saw these scientific intellectuals as a particular product of science, and regarded arts intellectuals as broadly hostile to science. The overall impression was that British postwar culture could indeed be understood through the framework of C.P. Snow’s famous two- cultures dichotomy. The present dissertation re-examines the place of scientific intellectuals during the first postwar decade and argues for the vigour of their activity through the period, and against the two-cultures framing of their story. Through an overview of scientific intellectuals who were active in mid-century, together with several case studies of important individuals and episodes, this study develops five main arguments. The first is that early Cold War conditions led to political engagements by British scientific intellectuals that rivalled the intensity of the preceding so c ia l relations of science era. A second and related argument is that most relevant historiography has overlooked significant continuities between these periods. I show that these intellectuals’ interwar and wartime experiences strongly determined the shape and content of early Cold War scientific intellectual discourse in unexpected ways. Thirdly, I argue that scientific intellectuals tended to act on their prior existing political views rather than on ideas that originated from science. A fourth argument is that scientific intellectuals were both more numerous and ideologically diverse than accounts have suggested. Their presence extended beyond the academic scientist community to include professional administrators, writers and journalists; and few belonged to the radical left-wing political faction which has received most historical attention to date. Finally, I argue that the relationship between scientific and humanities-trained intellectuals during the early Cold War did not conform to Snow’s two- cultures’ theses. The two groups not only exhibited a similar plurality of views in relation to science and to politics, but they also interacted and intersected with one another to a considerable extent. Nonetheless, with the atomic age came profound threats to science’s cultural standing; these in turn served to mark out scientific from non-scientific intellectuals in ways particular to this era. Together, these arguments reflect the importance of taking scientific intellectuals as an object of research to better understand more generally elite culture in Britain. Chapter 1 Rethinking The Place Of ‘Science’ In Early Cold War Britain An important impetus for the present study is the growing body of revisionist historical analyses that have put older accounts of mid-century British intellectuals into question. Two of the most salient works are Absent Minds