Thoughts on Mathematics of Statistics by Kenney?

Question

This book is written in 1939. It's available here on archive.org.

Would you recommend this as an introduction to the mathematics of statistics for beginners?

Books that old tend to be hard to read and to miss a comprehensive view of the field. — Xi'an, Dec 26 '14 at 10:46
possible duplicate of [Good resources (online or book) on the mathematical foundations of statistics](http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/56385/good-resources-online-or-book-on-the-mathematical-foundations-of-statistics) — Xi'an, Dec 26 '14 at 20:37

score 6 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 25 '14 at 21:01

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I wouldn't. The word "likelihood" appears only two times in the whole book (both volumes). Also, the anti-Bayesian criticisms are definitely dated. As my first book, I would use DeGroot-Schervish.

answered Dec 25 '14 at 21:01

Zen

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score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 25 '14 at 22:31

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What's your background? Casella & Berger is by far my favourite book on mathematical statistics (there's a very cheap international edition). There's Hogg Craig too, which you can use as second source since it's got a similar scope.

answered Dec 25 '14 at 22:31

mugen

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Thanks. I never actually did a course in statistics and I thought it started off well. My b/g is mechanical engineering. – Kedar Mhaswade Dec 26 '14 at 00:16
@Kedar Mhaswade given that you've got a solid mathematical background, Casella & Berger is the way to go. It's the book that will make you passionate for stats. – mugen Dec 26 '14 at 00:30

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 26 '14 at 11:01

If you want books on mathematical statistics at a graduate level, try

Essentials Statistics by Boos and Stefanski
Statistical Theory: a concise introduction by Abramovich and Ritov
Understanding Advanced Statistical Methods by Westfall and Henning
Probability for Statistics and Machine Learning by Das Gupta
All of Statistics by Wasserman

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 25 '14 at 22:23

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If you like old books, then I'd recommend Feller's classic text. It has all the math you need, and explains all very clearly.

answered Dec 25 '14 at 22:23

Aksakal

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It has all the math needed to read it? – Khashaa Dec 25 '14 at 23:04
@Khashaa, yes, and it doesn't have math that you don't need :) It's full of examples, which will help you develop the intuition. – Aksakal Dec 25 '14 at 23:20
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@Aksakal: Feller is not about statistics but probability theory... – Xi'an Dec 26 '14 at 10:44

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 26 '14 at 08:28

If you're looking for a free online introductory statistics textbook, may I recommend to have a look at OpenIntro Statistics? Not only it's well-written and quite easy to understand, but it also has nice online interactive exercises in R available at datacamp.org

Thoughts on Mathematics of Statistics by Kenney?

5 Answers5