Book excerpt: Elastic structures, conceived as slender bodies able to transmit loads, have been studied by scientists and engineers for centuries. By the seventeenth century several useful theories of elastic structures had emerged, with applications to civil and mechanical engineering problems. In recent years improved mathematical tools have extended applications into new areas such as geomechanics and biomechanics. This book, first published in 1998, offers a critically filtered collection of the most significant theories dealing with elastic slender bodies. It includes mathematical models involving elastic structures, which are used to solve practical problems with particular emphasis on nonlinear problems. This collection of interesting and important problems in elastic structures will appeal to a broad range of scientists, engineers and graduate students working in the area of structural mechanics.