Summary

This book developed out of my year-long course on asymptotic theory at Purdue University. To some extent, the topics coincide with what I cover in that course. There are already a number of well-known books on asy- totics. This book is quite different. It covers more topics in one source than areavailableinanyothersinglebookonasymptotictheory. Numeroustopics covered in this book are available in the literature in a scattered manner, and they are brought together under one umbrella in this book. Asymptotic theory is a central unifying theme in probability and statistics. My main goal in writing this book is to give its readers a feel for the incredible scope and reach of asymptotics. I have tried to write this book in a way that is accessible and to make the reader appreciate the beauty of theory and the insights that only theory can provide. Essentially every theorem in the book comes with at least one reference, preceding or following the statement of the theorem. In addition, I have p- vided a separate theorem-by-theorem reference as an entry on its own in the front of the book to make it extremely convenient for the reader to ?nd a proof that was not provided in the text. Also particularly worth mentioning is a collection of nearly 300 practically useful inequalities that I have c- lected together from numerous sources. This is appended at the very end of the book.