This graduate-level text provides a survey of the logic and reasoning underpinning statistical analysis, as well as giving a broad-brush overview of the various statistical techniques that play a major role in scientific and social investigations. Arranged in rough historical order, the text starts with the ideas of probability that underpin statistical methods and progresses through the developments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to modern concerns and solutions.

Assuming only a basic level of Mathematics and with numerous examples and illustrations, this text presents a valuable resource not only to the experienced researcher but also to the student, by complementing courses in a wide range of substantive areas and enabling the reader to rise above the details in order to see the overall structure of the subject.