Gelman really is an unbelievable Bayesian. I don't think I'd say the most important since Bayes himself (Jeffreys and Jaynes strike me as crucial to the Bayes m

Gelman really is an unbelievable Bayesian. I don't think I'd say the most important since Bayes himself (Jeffreys and Jaynes strike me as crucial to the Bayes movement, along with the computational folks, like Geman&Geman and Metropolis&Hastings), but certainly one of the most important living Bayesians. Gelman's (and Rubin, Carlin, Stern) Bayesian Data Analysis is by and large the most useful Bayes book out there. I keep it around just for reference sometimes, because of how detailed it is.