The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900

Rating:
Summary: Excellent content, turgid prose.
Review: Professor Stigler is an academic, and writes like one. He is obviously knowledgeable; this book will appeal to professional statisticians.

For intelligent laymen with a general interest in the history of statistics, "Against the Gods: The Story of Risk" by Peter Bernstein and "The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century" by David Salsburg will be equally informative and far more enjoyable. Both authors are as knowledgeable as Professor Stigler, but write more clearly.

Rating:
Summary: typical authoritative work of Stigler
Review: Stigler is unrivaled as a statistician who researches the history of statistics. This covers the famous mathematicians and statisticians who developed the foundation on which probability and statistics blossomed in the 20th Century. He is thorough and accurate and his writing is always clear and interesting. After reading this try Salsburg's "Lady Tasting Tea" to see how Fisher, Cramer, Neyman and Pearson and Kolmogorov and others formally developed probabilty and mathematical statistics as important disciplines in the 20th Century.

Rating:
Summary: typical authoritative work of Stigler
Review: Stigler is unrivaled as a statistician who researches the history of statistics. This covers the famous mathematicians and statisticians who developed the foundation on which probability and statistics blossomed in the 20th Century. He is thorough and accurate and his writing is always clear and interesting. After reading this try Salsburg's "Lady Tasting Tea" to see how Fisher, Cramer, Neyman and Pearson and Kolmogorov and others formally developed probabilty and mathematical statistics as important disciplines in the 20th Century.

Rating:
Summary: The difinitive work on the development of ststistics
Review: This book is THE definitive work on the early development of statistics. Obviously written by a man in love with his subject. Bernoulli, de Moivre, Bayes, Laplace, Gauss, Quetelet, Lexis, Galton, Edgeworth and Pearson all but come alive. I particularly enjoyed the reproductions of first sources included that you would otherwise have to travel to Paris to see.