Every year the JEHPS lists the books and articles on the history of probability and statistics that have appeared in the previous year. Inevitably there will be omissions but these can be made good. If you know of any in the list below, please contact me, John Aldrich, at john.aldrich@soton.ac.uk and I will put things right.
The literature on the history of probability and statistics is very dispersed, with contributions appearing both in outlets specialising in history and in outlets specialising in probability and statistics. The present list covers contributions of both kinds and aims to be comprehensive. At the same time, by considering only the history of probability and statistics, it is more focussed than the existing resources.
Besides general search engines like
the main bibliographical resources are
Current Index to Statistics
Mathematical Reviews
Zentralblatt MATH
Historia Mathematica
Isis
The Current Index to Statistics lists publications, journal articles and books. Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt MATH generally summarise each publication. Historia Mathematica publishes abstracts of recent publications. Isis publishes a Current Bibliography as the fifth issue each year. The entries below give titles and, where available, a link to an MR or Zb review. Note that sometimes MR lists an article without reviewing it and sometimes presents the bibliography without the review. Where a link is given there is something—a review, a bibliography or the promise of a review.
Vincent Barnett (2011) E. E. Slutsky as Economist and Mathematician: Crossing the Limits of Knowledge, Routledge. Amazon
Olav Bjerkholt & D. Qin (eds.) (2010) A Dynamic Approach to Economic Theory: Lectures by Ragnar Frisch at Yale University, London: Routledge.
David R. Bellhouse (2011) Abraham De Moivre: Setting the Stage for Classical Probability and Its Applications, A. K. Peters/CRC Press. Amazon MR Zbl
Francesco Cassata (2011) Building a New Man: Eugenics, Racial Sciences and Genetics in Twentieth Century Italy, Central European University Press. Amazon
Tom Crook, Glen O’Hara (eds.) (2011) Statistics and the Public Sphere: Numbers and the People in Modern Britain, c. 1800-2000, Routledge. Amazon
Andrew I. Dale and Samuel Kotz (2011) Arthur L. Bowley. A Pioneer in Modern Statistics and Economics, World Scientific Publishing. Amazon MR Zbl
Raymond Flood, Adrian Rice and Robin Wilson (eds.) (2011) Mathematics in Victorian Britain, Oxford University Press. Amazon. Zbl
Carl Friedrich Gauss (2011) Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientium, Cambridge University Press. Amazon
(2011) Fisher, Neyman, and the Creation of Classical Statistics, Springer. Amazon MR Zbl
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne (2011) The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy, Yale University Press. Amazon.
Oscar Sheynin and Heinrich Strecker (eds.) (2011) Alexandr A. Chuprov: Life, Work, Correspondence, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2nd revised edition. Amazon Zbl.
These are ordered alphabetically by the name of the author of the book under review. Some of the books reviewed appeared in earlier lists.
Timothy Alborn (2009) Regulated Lives: Life Insurance and British Society, 1800-1914. Reviewed by Theodore M. Porter, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 41, (2011), (3), 447-448.
Timothy Alborn (2009) Regulated Lives: Life Insurance and British Society, 1800-1914. Reviewed by Peter Scott, Business History Review, 85, (2011), (4), 857-859.
Michel Armatte
(2010) La science économique comme
ingénierie. Quantification et modélisation. Reviewed by Cléo
Chassonery-Zaïgouche OEconomia—History
Methodology Philosophy, 1, (2011), (3), 459-485.
Hsiang-Ke Chao (2009) Representation and Structure in Economics: The Methodology of Econometric Models of the Consumption Function. Reviewed by Jim Thomas, History of Political Economy, 43, (2011), (4), 779-781.
Bruno de Finetti (2010) Philosophical Lectures on Probability: collected, edited, and annotated by Alberto Mura, Hykel Hosni and Maria Carla Galavotti, Reviewed by Enrico Scalas, MR.
Hans Fischer (2010) A History
of the Central Limit Theorem: From Classical to Modern Probability Theory Springer.
Reviewed by Andrew R. Wade, MR.
Franciso
Louçã (2007) The Years of High Econometrics: A Short History of the
Generation that Reinvented Economics. Reviewed by Humberto Barreto, Economica,
78, (2011), Issue 311, 588-589.
Jacques
G. S. J. van Maarseveen, Paul M. M. Klep, and Ida H. Stamhuis (eds.) (20) The Statistical Mind in Modern Society: the
Netherlands, 1850-1940. Vol. I: Official Statistics, Social Progress and Modern
Enterprise; Vol. II: Statistics and Scientific Work. Reviewed by Thomas A. Stapleford, Isis, 102,
(2011), (1), 195-197.
Jacques G. S. J. van Maarseveen, Paul M. M. Klep, and Ida H. Stamhuis (eds.) (20) The Statistical Mind in Modern Society: the Netherlands, 1850-1940. Vol. I: Official Statistics, Social Progress and Modern Enterprise; Vol. II: Statistics and Scientific Work. Reviewed by Ann Saetnan, Centaurus, 53, (2011), (1), 69-71.
Ted
McCormick (2007) William Petty and the Ambitions of Political
Arithmetic. Reviewed
by Michael Hunter, American Historical Review, 115, (2010), (4), 1524-1525.
Nico Randeraad (2010) States and Statistics in the Nineteenth Century: Europe by Numbers. Reviewed by Edward Higgs, Economic History Review, 64, (2011), (4), 1410-1411.
Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze (2009) Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany. Individual Fates and Global Impact. Reviewed by Della D. Fenster, Isis, 102, (4), (2011), 789-790.
The Journal Electronique is the only journal dedicated to the history of probability and statistics and is the most important publication in terms of the number of articles it publishes. Other contributions are widely scattered across history of science journals, statistics journals, mathematics journals and natural and social science journals.
Aldrich, J. (2011) Econometrics
and Psychometrics: Rivers out of Biometry, History of Political Economy, 43,
35-56.
Armatte, M.
(2011) L’observation scientifique est-elle
un témoignage, Journal Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7, (1).
MR
Arribas, J. M. (2011) Marc
Barbut et l’Espagne, Mathématiques et sciences humaines, (193,
Printemps), 7-18.
Bellhouse,
David R. (2011) A
New Look at Halley’s Life Table, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series
A, 174 (3), 823-832.
Bingham, N. H. (2011) Józef Marcinkiewicz: Analysis and Probability. (English summary) Marcinkiewicz centenary volume, 27-44, Banach Center Publ., 95, Polish Acad. Sci. Inst. Math.
Biddle. J. E. (2011) The Introduction of the Cobb-Douglas Regression and Its Adoption by Agricultural Economists, History of Political Economy, 43 (supp. 1): 211-232.
Billod, F. (2011) L’œuvre
d’Ignatz de Luca (1747-1798),
Journal Electronique
d'Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7, (1).
Bjerkholt, O. and A. Dupont-Kieffer (2011) Ragnar Frisch and the Probability Approach, History of Political Economy, 43 (supp. 1): 109-139
Bolanos
Guerra, B. (2011) Condorcet et l’épistémologie juridique:
Lettres à Turgot de 1771, Journal Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités
et de la Statistique, 7, (1).
Boumans, M. and Ariane Dupont-Kieffer (2011) A History of the Histories of Econometrics, History of Political Economy, 43 (supp. 1), 1-4.
Broemeling, L. D. (2011) An Account of Early Statistical Inference in Arab Cryptology, American Statistician, 65, (4), 255-257.
Chao, H.-K. and C.-H. Huang (2011) Ta-Chung Liu’s Exploratory Econometrics History of Political Economy, 43 (supp. 1): 140-165
Daude, O. (2011) Le pragmaticisme et la question du témoignage, Journal Electronique
d’Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7, (1).
David, H. A. (2011) Euler’s Contributions to Mathematics Useful in Statistics, American Statistician, 65, (4), 37-42.
Dimand, R. W. (2011) Tobin as an Econometrician, History of Political Economy, 43, (supp. 1), 166-187.
Dupont-Kieffer, A. and A. Pirotte (2011) The Early Years of Panel Data Econometrics, History of Political Economy, 43, (supp. 1), 258-282.
de Finetti, B. (2011) La teoria del rischio e il problema
della “rovina dei giocatori” (1939), Journal
Electronique d’Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7, (1).
Didier, E. (2011) Counting on Relief: Industrializing the Statistical Interviewer during the New Deal, Science in Context, 24, (2), 281-310
Ducheyne, S. (2011) Testing Universal Gravitation in the Laboratory, or the Significance of Research on the Mean Density of the Earth and Big G, 1798-1898: Changing Pursuits and Long-term Methodological-experimental Continuity, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 65, (2), 181-227.
Durand, A. and L. Mazliak (2011) Revisiting the Sources of Borel’s Interest in Probability: Continued Fractions, Social Involvement, Volterra’s Prolusione, Centaurus, 53, (4), 306-332.
Eberhardt, F. (2011) Reliability via synthetic a priori: Reichenbach’s doctoral thesis on Probability, Synthese, 181, (1), 125–136.
Gabbay, D. M. and M. Koppel (2011) Uncertainty Rules in Talmudic Reasoning, History and Philosophy of Logic, 32, (1), 63-69.
Giorgi, G. M. (2011) Corrado Gini: The Man and the Scientist, Metron, 69, (1),1–28.
Gorroochurn, P. (2011) Errors of Probability in Historical Context, American Statistician, 65, (4), 246-254.
Grcar, J. F. (2011) How Ordinary Elimination became Gaussian Elimination, Historia Mathematica, 38, (2), 163-218.
Greene, G. (2011) Richard Doll and Alice Stewart: Reputation and the Shaping of Scientific “Truth”, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 54, (4), 504-531.
Ikeo, A. (2011) A History of Japanese Developments in Econometrics, History of Political Economy, 43, (supp. 1), 188-210.
Johnson, K. (2011)
Quantitative Realizations of Philosophy of Science: William Whewell and
Statistical Methods, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A,
42, (3), 399-478.
Kirman, A.
(2011) Barbut, Lévy, Les marchés efficaces et Arrow, Mathématiques et
sciences humaines, (193, Printemps),
67-75.
Krengel, U. (2011) On the Contributions of Bohlmann to Probability
Theory, Journal Electronique d'Histoire des
Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7,
(1).
Kusolitsch, N. (2010) Why the Theorem of
Scheffé should be rather called a Theorem of Riesz, Periodica Mathematica
Hungarica, 61, (1–2) (2010), 225–229. MR
Lai, A. (2011) London Cholera and the Blind-spot of an Epidemiology theory, Significance, 8, (2), 82-85.
Louçã, F. and S. Terlica (2011) The Fellowship of Econometrics: Selection and Diverging Views in the Province of Mathematical Economics, from the 1930s to the 1950s, History of Political Economy, 43, (supp. 1), 57-85
Maier, D. (2011) Francis Galton: Measuring the immeasurable, Significance, 8, (3), 122-123.
Martin, T. (2011) Introduction (English) (French) to Special Issue on
Probabilités juridiques et Statistiques judiciaires, Journal
Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7, (1).
Martin, T. (2011) La probabilité des jugements de Nicolas-François
Canard , Journal Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités
et de la Statistique, 7, (1).
Martin, T. (2011) Gabriel Tarde et la statistique criminelle, Mathématiques
et sciences humaines, (193, Printemps), 27-35.
Mazliak, L. and G. Shafer (2011) What Does the Arrest and Release of Emile Borel and His Colleagues in 1941 Tell Us about the German Occupation of France? Science in Context, 24, (4), 587 - 623
Mazliak, L. and G. Shafer (2011) Some Documents bearing on the Arrest and Release of Emile Borel, Science in Context, 24, (4), 625 - 636.
Morgan, M. S. (2011) Foreword [to Histories on Econometrics supplement], History of Political Economy, 43, (supp. 1), 1-4.
Myrvold, W. C. (2011) Statistical mechanics and thermodynamics: A Maxwellian view, Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies In History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 42, (4,), 237-243.
O’Brien, C. (2011) The Origins and Originators of Early Statistical
Societies: A Comparison of Liverpool and Manchester, Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society Series A, 174 (3),
51-62.
Palermo, A. (2011) Logique juridique et logique
probabiliste chez F.M.Pagano, Journal Electronique d'Histoire des
Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7,
(1).
Parisi, D. (2011) Corrado Gini (1884-1965): The Leading Figure of the Italian Group in the Econometric Society, History of Political Economy, 43, (supp. 1), 211-232.
Pence, C. H. (2011) “Describing our whole experience”: The Statistical Philosophies of W. F. R. Weldon and Karl Pearson, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42, (4), 475-485.
Qin, D. (2011)
The Phillips Curve from the Perspective of the History of Econometrics, History
of Political Economy, 43, (supp. 1), 283-308.
Radick, G. (2011) Physics in the Galtonian Sciences of Heredity, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42, (3), 129-138.
Regazzini, E. and F. Spizzichino (2011) De Finetti’s encounter with
martingales, Journal Electronique d'Histoire des
Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7,
(1).
Renfro, C. F. (2011) Econometrics and the Computer: Love or a Marriage of Convenience? History of Political Economy, 43, (supp. 1), 86-105.
Renwick, C. (2011) From Political Economy to Sociology: Francis Galton and the Social-scientific Origins of Eugenics, British Journal for the History of Science, 44, (3), 343-369.
Robert, C. P. (2011) Reading Keynes’ Treatise on Probability, International Statistical Review, 79, (1), 1-15.
Robert, C. and
G. Casella (2011) A Short History of Markov Chain Monte Carlo: Subjective
Recollections from Incomplete Data, Statistical Science, 26, (1),
102-115.
Rutherford, M. (2011) The
USDA Graduate School: Government Training in Statistics and Economics, 1921-1945,
Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 33, (4), 419-447.
Senn, S. (2011) Francis Galton and Regression to the Mean, Significance, 8, (3), 124-126.
Sheynin, Oscar (2010) Karl Pearson a
century and a half after his birth, Mathematical
Scientist, 35, (1), 1–9.
Stapelbroek, K., I. H Stamhuis and P. M. M. Klep (2010) Adriaan Kluit's statistics and the future of the Dutch state from a European perspective, History of European Ideas, 36, (2), 217-235.
Stapleford, T. A. (2011) Reconceiving Quality: Political Economy and the Rise of Hedonic Price Indexes, History of Political Economy, 43, (suppl 1), 309-328.
Stigler, S. M. (2011) Galton Visualizing Bayesian Inference, Chance, 24, (1), 8-10.
Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews no
Stone, M. (2011) The Owl and the Nightingale: The Quetelet/Nightingale Nexus, Chance, 24, (4), 30-34.
Touchelay, B. (2010) La SSP et le service central de la
statistique publique, Journal
Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique, 6, (2).
Tulodziecki, D. (2011) A Case Study in Explanatory Power: John Snow’s Conclusions about the Pathology and Transmission of Cholera, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42, (3), 306-316.
Valade, B.
(2011) Marc Barbut et “la loi de Pareto”,Mathématiques et sciences humaines,
(193, Printemps), 57-66.
Wainer, H. (2010) Schrödinger's Cat and the Conception of Probability in Item Response Theory, Chance, 23, (1).
Watnik, M. (2011) Early Computational Statistics, Journal
of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 20, (4), 811-817
Yeang, C.-P. (2011) Tubes, Randomness, and Brownian Motions: or, How Engineers Learned to Start Worrying about Electronic Noise, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 65, (4), 437-470.
Zaubermann, R.
and P. Robert (2011) Statistique criminelle et mesure de la
délinquance, Journal
Electronique d'Histoire des Probabilités et de la Statistique, 7, (1).
Ziliak, S. T. (2011) Matrixx v. Siracusano and Student v. Fisher: Statistical significance on Trial, Significance, 8, (3), 131-134.
Zudini, V. (2011) The
Euclidean Model of Measurement in Fechner's Psychophysics, Journal of the
History of the Behavioral Sciences, 47, (1), 70-87.
A few journals regularly publish interviews with distinguished practitioners and obituaries. These publications can be important sources for the writing of contemporary history.
These are ordered alphabetically by name of interviewee.
Peter J. Bickel interviewed by Ya’acov Ritov, Statistical Science, 26, (2011), (1), 150-159. Project Euclid
David Brillinger interviewed by Victor M. Panaretos, Statistical Science, 26, (2011), (3), 440-469. Project Euclid
Evelyn Pye interviewed by Julian Champkin, Significance, 8, (2011), (3), 127-130.
C. R. Rao interviewed by Julian Champkin, Significance, 8, (2011), (4), 175-178.
B.L.S. Prakasa Rao interviewed by Arup Bose, Econometric Theory, 27, (2) (2011), 373 – 411.
Eugenio Regazzini interviewed by Antonio Lijoi and Igor Prünster, Statistical Science, 26, (2011), (4), 647-672. Project Euclid
Peter M. Robinson interviewed by Miguel A. Delgado and F. Javier Hidalgo, Econometric Theory, 27, (4), (2011), 885- 905.
Hal Varian interviewed by Julian Champkin, Significance, 8, (2011), (4), 31-34.
These are ordered alphabetically by name of deceased.
Richard Malvern Allen, 1933-2009 remembered by Anne Harrison, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, (2011), 174, (4), 1178-1179.
John Robert
Ashford 1929-2010 remembered by Kenneth Read, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society:
Series A, (2011), 174, (3), 837-838.
Julian Besag FRS 1945-2010 remembered
by Peter J. Diggle and Peter J. Green, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society:
Series A, (2011), 174, (2), 502-504.
Patrick Billingsley 1925-2011 remembered by Steve Lalley IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (6), 9-11.
David Harold Blackwell 1919-2010 remembered
by David R. Brillinger, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, (2011), 174, (1), 230-233.
John Arthur Bound 1924-2010 remembered
by Gerald Goodhardt, Journal of
the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, (2011), 174, (1), 237-238.
Edward J. Dudewicz 1942-2010 remembered by Zaven A. Karian and E.C. van der Meulen, IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (1), 13.
Andrew Samuel Christopher Ehrenberg 1926-2010 remembered by Gerald Goodhardt and Chris
Chatfield, Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society: Series A, (2011), 174, (1),
235-237.
Herman P. Friedman 1930-2010 remembered by Demissie Alemayehu IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (1), 10-11.
Bernard Harris 1926-2011 remembered by members of the Harris family, IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (5), 10.
Pilar Iglesias remembered by Guido del Pino and Gloria Icaza, Chilean Journal of Statistics, 1, (1) (2010), 5-16.
Gopal K. Kanji 1938-2010 remembered
by Warren Gilchrist, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, (2011), 174, (1), 233-236
1917-2009 remembered by Javier Rojo and Willem R. van
Zwet, Annals of Statistics, 39, (5), 2244-2265 and
2266-2279. Project
Euclid.
Julian Robert Leslie 1948-2010 remembered
by Eugene Seneta, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society:
Series A, (2011), 174, (3), 838-839.
Benoît Mandelbrot 1924–2010 remembered by Richard Hudson, IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (4), 8-9.
Paul Meier 1924-2011 remembered by Dennis Hevesi, New York Times, August 11, 2011.
P. G. Moore 1928-2010 remembered by
T. M. F. Smith and Sonja Moore, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, (2011), 174, (1), 227-230.
John Ashworth Nelder 1924-2010 remembered
by Peter McCullagh, Bob Gilchrist and Roger Payne, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society:
Series A, (2011), 174, (2), 499-502.
Bishnoedath Leo Raktoe 1932-2009 remembered by Hosh Pesotan and Radhey S. Singh IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (1), 10
Timothy Robertson 1937-2010 remembered by Richard Dykstra, IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (5), 9.
Anatolii Skorokhod 1930-2011 remembered by Atmah Mandrekar, Bernoulli News, (2011), 18, (1).
Anatolii Skorokhod 1930-2011 remembered by Alex Novikov and Albert Shiryaev IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (6), 8.
Jagdish N. Srivastava 1933-2010 remembered by Subir Ghosh, Journal
of Statistical Planning and Inference, (2011), 141, 1633-1634.
J. N. Srivastava 1933-2010 remembered by Subir Ghosh, IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (1), 11.
Igor Vajda 1942-2010 remembered by Martin
Janzura, Friedrich Liese, and Edward van der Meulen, Bernoulli News, (2011), 18, (1).
Igor Vajda 1942-2010 remembered by Martin Janzura,
Friedrich Liese, and Edward van der Meulen, IMS Bulletin, (2011) 40, (3), 8-9.
Mario Wschebor (1939-2011) remembered by Joaquín Ortega, Bernoulli News, (2011), 18, (2).
Arnold Zellner 1927-2010 remembered by Peter E. Rossi, Econometric Theory, (2011), 27, (1), 1- 3.
The following journals were examined. (Most publish relevant articles only occasionally and some published none in the year under review.)
American Statistician, Annals of Probability, Annals of Science,
Annals of Statistics, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Australian & New Zealand Journal of Statistics,
Bayesian Analysis, Biometrical Journal, Biometrika, Bollettino di Storia delle Scienze Matematiche,
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science,
British Journal of the History of Science, BSHM Bulletin, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society,
Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Bulletin of the
London Mathematical Society, Centaurus, Chance, Contemporary
Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, Convergence, Courrier
des Statistiques, Econometric Theory, Economic
History Review, Erkenntnis, European Journal of the History of Economic Thought,
Historia Mathematica, Historia Scientiarum, History and Philosophy of Logic, History of Political Economy, History of Psychology,
History of Science, IMS Bulletin, ISI Newsletter, International Statistical Review, Isis, Journal de la Société Francaise de Statistique, Journal Electronique d'Histoire des
Probabilités et de la Statistique, Journal of Official Statistics, Journal of the American Statistical Association,
Journal of Applied Probability, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Journal of the History of Biology, Journal
of the History of Economic Thought, Journal
of the Royal Statistical Society A, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference,
NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik
und Medizin, MAA
Reviews, Mathématiques et sciences humaines, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, Perspectives on Science, Philosophy of Science, Quality
& Quantity, Revue d'histoire des mathématiques, Revue d'histoire des sciences, Rutherford Journal, Social Studies of Science, Science in Context, Significance, Statistical Science, Statistics in Medicine, Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part A,
Studies In History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies
In History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy
of Biological and Biomedical Sciences.