This readable, student-friendly text responds to the pedagogical needs created by the advent of computational mechanics by focusing more upon formulations and fundamental principles and less upon classical solution techniques. It covers three main areas--(1) the fundamental principles of continuum mechanics, (2) the theories of beams and plates, and (3) static stability theory--with three unifying strands connecting them--(1) a direct vector notation, (2) the principle of virtual work (or variational calculus), and (3) a unified approach to numerical computation.