Wedecidedtotrytowriteabalanced account ofresamplingmethods,toincludebasic aspects of the theory which underpinned the methods,and to show as manyapplications as we could in order to illustrate the fun potential of the methods-warts and alL We quickly realized that in order for uS and others to understandand use the bootstrap,we would need suitable software,and producing it led usfurther towards a practically oriented treatment.0ur view was cemented by twofurther developments:the appearance oftwo excellent books,one bv PIeter Hallon the asymptotic theory and the other on basic methods bv Bradley Efron andRobert Tibshirani;and the chance to give further courses that included practicals.Our experience has been that hands-on computing is essential in coming to gripswith resampling ideas,so we have included practicals in this booL as well as moretheoretical problems.