Therelationships（bothconceptualandmathematical）betweenBayesiananalysisandstatisticaldecisiontheoryaresostrongthatitissomewhatunnaturaltolearnonewithouttheother.Nevertheless,majorportionsofeachhavedevelopedseparately.OntheBayesianside,thereisanextensivelydevelopedBayesiantheoryofstatisticalinference（bothsubjectiveandobjectiveversions）.Thistheoryrecognizestheimportanceofviewingstatisticalanalysisconditionally（i.e.,treatingobserveddataasknownratherthanunknown）,evenwhennolossfunctionistobeincorporatedintotheanalysis.Thereisalsoawell-developed（frequentist）decisiontheory,whichavoidsformalutilizationofpriordistributionsandseekstoprovideafoundationforfrequentiststatisticaltheory.AlthoughthecentralthreadofthebookwillbeBayesiandecisiontheory,bothBayesianinferenceandnon-Bayesiandecisiontheorywillbeextensivelydiscussed.Indeed,thebookiswrittensoastoallow,say,theteachingofacourseoneithersubjectseparately.