Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Part I. Overview: 1. Introduction and synopsis; 2. Rise and fall of the hadronic string / Gabriele Veneziano; 3. Gravity, unification, and the superstring / John H. Schwarz; 4. Early string theory as a challenging case study for philosophers / Elena Castellani -- Part II. The Prehistory: The Analytic S-Matrix: 5. Introduction to Part II; 6. Particle theory in the sixties: from current algebra to the Veneziano amplitude / Marc Ademollo; 7. The path to the Veneziano model / Hector R. Rubinstein; 8. Two-component duality and strings / Peter G.O. Freund; 9. Note on the prehistory of string theory / Murray Gell-Mann -- Part III. The Dual Resonance Model: 10. Introduction to Part III; 11. From the S-matrix to string theory / Paolo Di Vecchia; 12. Reminiscence on the birth of string theory / Joel A. Shapiro; 13. Personal recollections / Daniele Amati; 14. Early string theory at Fermilab and Rutgers / Louis Clavelli; 15. Dual amplitudes in higher dimensions: a personal view / Claud Lovelace; 16. Personal recollections on dual models / Renato Musto; 17. Remembering the 'supergroup' collaboration / Francesco Nicodemi; 18. The '3-Reggeon vertex' / Stefano Sciuto -- Part IV. The String: 19. Introduction to Part IV; 20. From dual models to relativistic strings / Peter Goddard; 21. The first string theory: personal recollections / Leonard Susskind; 22. The string picture of the Veneziano model / Holger B. Nielsen; 23. From the S-matrix to string theory / Yoichiro Nambu; 24. The analogue model for string amplitudes / David B. Fairlie; 25. Factorization in dual models and functional integration in string theory / Stanley Mandelstam; 26. The hadronic origins of string theory / Richard C. Brower -- Part V. Beyond the Bosonic String: 27. Introduction to Part V; 28. From dual fermion to superstring / David I. Olive; 29. Dual models with fermions: memoirs of an early string theorist / Pierre Ramond; 30. Personal recollections / André Neveu; 31. Aspects of fermionic dual models / Edward Corrigan; 32. The dual quark models / Korkut Bardakci and Martin B. Halpern; 33. Remembering the dawn of relativistic strings / Jean-Loup Gervais; 34. Early string theory in Cambridge: personal recollections / Claus Montonen -- Part VI. The Superstring: 35. Introduction to Part VI; 36. Supersymmetry in string theory / Ferdinando Gliozzi; 37. Gravity from strings: personal reminiscences of early developments / Tamiaki Yoneya; 38. From the Nambu-Goto to the [sigma]-model action / Lars Brink; 39. Locally supersymmetric action for the superstring / Paolo Di Vecchia; 40. Personal recollections / Eugène Cremmer; 41. The scientific contributions of Jooël Scherk / John H. Schwarz -- Part VII. Preparing the String Renaissance: 42. Introduction to Part VII; 43. From strings to superstrings: a personal perspective / Michael B. Green; 44. Quarks, strings and beyond / Alexander M. Polyakov; 45. The rise of superstring theory / Andrea Cappelli and Filippo Colomo.

String theory is currently the best candidate for a unified theory of all forces and all forms of matter in nature. As such, it has become a focal point for physical and philosophical discussions. This unique book explores the history of the theory's early stages of development, as told by its main protagonists. The book journeys from the first version of the theory (the so-called dual resonance model) in the late sixties, as an attempt to describe the physics of strong interactions outside the framework of quantum field theory, to its reinterpretation around the mid-seventies as a quantum theory of gravity unified with the other forces, and its successive developments up to the superstring revolution in 1984. Providing important background information to current debates on the theory, this book is essential reading for students and researchers in physics, as well as historians and philosophers of science.