Parity doubling in excited hadrons is reviewed. Parity degeneracy in hadrons
was first experimentally observed 40 years ago. Recently new experimental data
on light mesons caused much excitement and renewed interest to the phenomenon,
which still remains to be enigmatic. The present retrospective review is an
attempt to trace the history of parity doubling phenomenon, thus providing a
kind of introduction to the subject. We begin with early approaches of 1960s
(Regge theory and dynamical symmetries) and end up with the latest trends
(manifestations of broader degeneracies and AdS/QCD). We show the evolution of
various ideas about parity doubling. The experimental evidence for this
phenomenon is scrutinized in the non-strange sector. Some experiments of 1960s
devoted to the search for missing non-strange bosons are re-examined and it is
argued that results of these experiments are encouraging from the modern
perspective.Comment: Version to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys. A, 63 pages, 9 figure
