From the reviews: "In this very enjoyable and interesting book, Hald ... presents his subject in a very lively style; many ideas and developments in statistics are treated with great clarity. It is very suitable as a course resource in history of statistical inference ... . Throughout, the author provides brief biographical sketches of researchers whose contributions to statistics are included here. ... A very useful and valuable work on the history of statistical inference. ... Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates through faculty." (D. V. Chopra, CHOICE, Vol. 44 (11), July, 2007) "This is a useful account of the historical development of the theory that underlies the empirically observed stability of data averages for large samples and how their precision may be measured. ... The resultant book is a suitable text for a one-semester course on what is arguably the core piece of statistical history." (C. C. Heyde, SIAM Review, Vol. 50 (1), 2008)