The book discusses the statistical revolution which took place in the twentieth century, where science shifted from a deterministic view (Clockwork universe) to a perspective concerned primarily with probabilities and distributions and parameters. Salsburg aims to do this through a collection of stories about the people who were fundamental in the change, starting with men like R.A. Fisher and Karl Pearson. He discusses at length how many of these people had their own philosophy of statistics, and in particular their own understanding of statistical significance^[1]. Throughout, he introduces in a very nontechnical fashion a variety of statistical ideas and methods, such as maximum likelihood estimation and bootstrapping.

The book was generally well-received, receiving coverage in a variety of medical^[2][3] and statistical journals^[4]. Reviewers from the medical field enjoyed Salsburg's coverage of Fisher's opposition to early research on the health effects of tobacco. Critics disagreed with certain opinions that Salsburg voiced, like his barebones portrayal of Bayesian statistics and his seeming disdain for pure mathematics. Nevertheless, almost all reviewers appreciated the interesting read and recommended the book to people in their field as well as a general audience.

The book discusses a wide variety of statisticians, mathematicians, as well as other scientists and scholars. This is a list of those mentioned, broken down into groups of chapters.