by Josepha Laroche
Translation: Pierre Chabal
Before analyzing the current situation, it seems necessary to recall the historical context in which the Nobel prizes register. The Nobel system has been in existence for over a century. We owe it to the will of the Swedish philanthropist Alfred Nobel who decided to devote his fortune to it1. A literary man, a polyglot and an amateur poet, Nobel was primarily a chemist at the origin of more than 300 registered patents. This famous inventor of dynamite was also a particularly shrewd industrialist and financier who created one of the first multinationals with, already in his time, subsidiaries in a large number of countries (Germany, United States, France Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, etc.). This entrepreneurial dimension allowed him to carry out the pacifist project to which he was attached more than to anything else.
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