Book excerpt: This self-contained graduate-level text introduces classical continuum models within a modern framework. Its numerous exercises illustrate the governing principles, linearizations, and other approximations that constitute classical continuum models. Starting with an overview of one-dimensional continuum mechanics, the text advances to examinations of the kinematics of motion, the governing equations of balance, and the entropy inequality for a continuum. The main portion of the book involves models of material behavior and presents complete formulations of various general continuum models. The final chapter contains an introductory discussion of materials with internal state variables. Two substantial appendixes cover all of the mathematical background necessary to understand the text as well as results of representation theorems. Suitable for independent study, this volume features 280 exercises and 170 references.