Book excerpt: Sponsored by the Geo-Institute of ASCE. This collections contains 35 key papers by James K. Mitchell during his extraordinary career as a geotechnical engineer.Ø In addition to teaching, Mitchell's career encompassed geotechnical projects ranging from research on hazardous waste landfill stability at Kettleman Hills in California, to lunar soil analysis for NASA Apollo Missions, to working with the Mayor of San Francisco following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Science. Topics include: experimental and analytic studies of soil behavior related to geotechnical and geo-environmental problems; soil improvement and ground reinforcement, physicochemical phenomena in soils, the stress-strain time behavior of soils, in situ measurement of soil properties, and mitigation of ground failure risk during earthquakes. ASCE's Engineering Classics series presents selected papers of lasting importance by eminent engineers who have made outstanding contributions to their field.