​The book showcases a selection of peer-reviewed papers, the preliminary versions of which were presented at a conference held 11-13 June 2011 in Bologna and organized jointly by the Italian Statistical Society (SIS), the Institute national Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) and the Bank of Italy. The theme of the conference was "Statistics in the 150 years of the Unification of Italy."

The celebration of the anniversary of Italian unification provided the opportunity to examine and discuss the methodological aspects and applications from a historical perspective and both from a national and international point of view. The critical discussion on the issues of the past has made it possible to focus on recent advances, considering the studies of socio-economic and demographic changes in European countries.