Ernesto Grassi and the Reconciliation of the Sciences and the Humanities in rowohlts deutsche enzyklopädie

Abstract

When the Italian-German philosopher Ernesto Grassi founded the paperback series rowohlts deutsche enzyklopädie in 1955, the idea was not just to give an overview of the scientific state of the art in all fields of science, technology, and the humanities. The even more ambitious idea was to reconcile two cultures by building an encylopedia of books, which represented human thinking in the postwar era. In contrast to C. P. Snow’s notion of the cultures, Grassi was not so much concerned with the “literary culture” and the “scientific culture.” Instead, he wanted to overcome a presumed borderline between a European humanistic tradition and an American technological and pragmatic tradition. In my article, I will argue that this fundamental distinction shaped Grassi’s publication policy and was part of a strategy to “westernize” the young West German generation in a Cold War atmosphere.