the best 100 nonfiction books of the 20th century by the Modern Library

 A lively and provocative writer if often a highly technical one, Professor Hacking wrote several landmark works on the philosophy and history of probability, including “The Taming of Chance” (1990), which was named one of the best 100 nonfiction books of the 20th century by the Modern Library.

98. THE TAMING OF CHANCE by Ian Hacking

Statistics saturate our conversations, our news, and our governments—but how, and why, did these numbers attain such outsize influence? Hacking argues that our belief in statistics reflects our attitudes toward randomness: Do we believe that randomness exists? Or do we believe that chance is merely ignorance of undiscovered laws of the universe? Although this book may not be for everyone, it did earn rave reviews from the American Historical Review and the Journal of the American Statistical Association (“very pleasant reading”). A book that has shaped how we talk about probability and our attitudes toward science.