This is the history of the proof of renormalizability of gauge theories as I perceive it. It is a personal account.

The importance of the proof of renormalizability is well known to all. Personally I have always felt that the proof was much more important than the actual construction of a model, the Standard Model. I felt that, once you knew the recipe, the road to a realistic description of Nature would be a matter of time and experiment. There some may disagree with me; I think, however, that a careful study of the recent history of high-energy physics will lead to this conclusion. Seldom has there been such a clear watershed. Old models, truly “dormant” (as Steven Weinberg put it), became credible and popular. Quantum chromodynamics came into being almost overnight. The proof of renormalizability also provided detailed technical methods such as, for example, suitable regularization methods, next to indispensable for any practical application of the theory. In longer perspective, the developments in supersymmetry and supergravity have been stimulated and enhanced by the renewed respectability of renormalizable field theory (including the absence of anomalies). If anything “turned the wheel,” as SLAC people have put it, it is this proof of renormalizability. Of course, the theory needs experimental verification, and whether people were convinced after the discovery of neutral currents, or after the discovery of charm, or W and Z, is another matter.