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Games, Gods & Gambling: A History of Probability and Statistical Ideas

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F.N. David explores early perception of and ideas about random variation, starting from games of chance and divination in antiquity. Her view on these is fascinating, as is her interpretation of early signs of the apparition of chance arithmetic in medieval literature. Then she recounts the controversies and the lives of the great scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries, and finally the origins of the first treatises on "problems of chance" between 1650 and about 1750 (ending with de Moivre). Furthermore, an interesting selection of (translated) source material is included in appendices.

F.N. David's book is written in an attractive, narrative style that seems a bit old-fashioned and opinionated at times but never monotonous. Her facts are well documented and her viewpoints are mostly well argued, yet she does not attempt an exhaustive or mathematical treatment. Therefore the book remains very readable and stimulating to the end.

At the end of the book, the idea of statistical inference has yet to emerge. The more monumental work of Stephen Stigler, "The History of Statistics", takes the story up more or less where F.N. David left it, around 1700.