Book excerpt: The first edition of this classic book has become the authoritative reference for physicists desiring to master the finer points of statistical data analysis. This second edition contains all the important material of the first, much of it unavailable from any other sources. In addition, many chapters have been updated with considerable new material, especially in areas concerning the theory and practice of confidence intervals, including the important Feldman-Cousins method. Both frequentist and Bayesian methodologies are presented, with a strong emphasis on techniques useful to physicists and other scientists in the interpretation of experimental data and comparison with scientific theories. This is a valuable textbook for advanced graduate students in the physical sciences as well as a reference for active researchers.