Résumé
This chapter reviews the specific features of hadron scattering that gave rise to the string model. String theories have remarkable characteristics not shared by ordinary field theories of point particles. The most spectacular is that their quantization is possible in a natural and consistent way only in space-times of fixed dimensions. They also all have in their spectrum massless particles of spin 1 (for open strings) and 2 (for closed strings). Together with other special characteristics, this made it clear that strings could not be the basis of a fundamental theory of strong interactions, for which they nevertheless give excellent phenomenological descriptions in appropriate kinematical configurations. The present candidate for a fundamental theory of string interactions is quantum chromodynamics. Another special characteristic is the fact that superstrings come out chiral in a naturally consistent way, without the anomalies influencing chiral quantum field theories. Even better, chiral superstrings are finite order by order in perturbation theory, the order being the genus of the surface in space-time.