The quark spin structure of the nucleon

Some non-perturbative aspects of the nucleon quark spin structure are reviewed. The first part is a brief summary of early theoretical developments in the field of polarized deep inelastic scattering of electrons on polarized nucleons and an illustration of the non-perturbative power of lattice QCD 25 years later. The second part is a short pedagogical introduction to the analysis of high energy scattering in the complex angular momentum plane, with particular emphasis on spin-dependent deep inelastic electron-nucleon scattering. The third part comprises a brief introduction to lattice QCD and its applications in the non-perturbative determination of the spin-dependent structure functions.