Rating: 
Summary: Good book if a little dated
Review: There are more books on classical mechanics than there are students of the subject. Goldsteins book is one that just seems to of been around forever.Even though this was written in 1980 he has deliberatley avoided the 'modern' developments such as Abraham and Marsden and the towering genius of 20th century mechanics Arnold. This is no place for diffeomorphisms or invariant tori. Perhaps these days the best use for a book like Goldstein is to have it along side A&M to translate from the old language to the new and vice versa. At the end of each chapter there is a guide to other texts on the same or related topics. Very well written and very amusing.
Rating:
Summary: Only for the serious student of mechanics
Review: There is a good deal of material in this book, including almost every mathematical tool one could possibly use in classical mechanics. However, the title gives no warning of the scope of the book. Be warned: a one semester introductory physics course does not begin to provide the background needed just to get started in this book. With some background in variational calculus and Lagrangian mechanics, the first few chapters are fairly straightforward and very informational. The alternative development of Lagrange's principle from the principle of virtual work is extremely useful in providing a greater understanding of the subject. However, after the first few chapters, the topics become increasingly difficult and there are some points where a more in depth discussion would be prudent. If anything, they provide insight on how far from trivial classical mechanics is. This book is not for everyone, especially not the weak of heart, but a serious student of mechanics will find it invaluable.
Rating:
Summary: Only for the serious student of mechanics
Review: There is a good deal of material in this book, including almost every mathematical tool one could possibly use in classical mechanics. However, the title gives no warning of the scope of the book. Be warned: a one semester introductory physics course does not begin to provide the background needed just to get started in this book. With some background in variational calculus and Lagrangian mechanics, the first few chapters are fairly straightforward and very informational. The alternative development of Lagrange's principle from the principle of virtual work is extremely useful in providing a greater understanding of the subject. However, after the first few chapters, the topics become increasingly difficult and there are some points where a more in depth discussion would be prudent. If anything, they provide insight on how far from trivial classical mechanics is. This book is not for everyone, especially not the weak of heart, but a serious student of mechanics will find it invaluable.
Rating: 
Summary: There are none better.
Review: This book is superb in its content, especially about the logical structure of the chapters organized. There are no other texts can match this.The problems are also challanging. If you're looking for an excellent mechanics book with the "conventional" mathematics (meaning: no use of differential geometry/topology/global analysis), then this is the one you should buy.
Rating:
Summary: A landmark
Review: This book was originally written in 1950. Inspite of its age, it is still a masterpiece in its kind. The author's approach is very attentive to developing the physical intuition, which makes the book an easy reading. The breadth of coverage is remarkable: along with relativity (and a bit of electromagnetism), it covers the mechanics of continua, too. The wide coverage more than pays back the effort of reading the relatively long text. Last but not least, the book is very well suited for self-study thanks to both its clarity and the many exercises provided (without solutions, unfortunately). Overall, it's still unsurpassed if you want to understand mechanics by yourself at the beginning graduate level. For the sake of this purpose, neither Landau not Arnold (two other masterpieces) come close. Rather, I recommend you to first read Goldstein and some time later read Arnold.
Rating:
Summary: Quite thorough
Review: This is a far better book than any other book on Classical Mechanics that I have come across. This one starts with simple things and goes on to develop the ideas quite lucidly and logically - which lack in Landau. The explanations do help in understanding what the author is trying to establish.
Rating:
Summary: 4.5 stars, a good book to learn from
Review: This is a good book for an advanced undergraduate to learn classical mechanics from, and also for the beginning graduate student who didn't learn about some of the somewhat more advanced topics in the subject, like the theory of canonical transformations and the Hamilton-Jacobi theory (I fell into the later camp, by the way). Yes, Landau is more concise and elegant, but for me at least it has served better as a reference now that I have mastered Goldstein (Landau is an excellent author, but I believe I am not alone in saying that it is very difficult to learn a subject for the first time from his books!) Unlike other reviewers, I have no substantial complaints about the problems. Granted, there are some that are not very deep, but you can simply skip those if you like! And I find them nowhere near as difficult as Jackson problems! By the way, I encourage you to read with a skeptical eye - I found several mistakes and typos in the book. Perhaps there is a catalog of these somewhere on the Addison-Wesley web site? Oh, one final thing - I think it is out of line to compare this book with Abraham and Marsden - they have totally different objectives. Goldstein's aim is to develop in the student a solid grasp of the **basics** of mechanics - one must master Goldstein (or a book like it) before he or she understands the subject well enough to even decide whether Abraham and Marsden is a worthwhile endeavour!
Rating:
Summary: Mechanics
Review: This is a superb book for graduate level mechanics. It is complete and rigorous. It is a bit pricy, so look for used copies. The second edition is more standard since there is a lot of new notation in the third. There are a handful of minor typos that a careful read will weed out.
Rating:
Summary: Mechanics
Review: This is a superb book for graduate level mechanics. It is complete and rigorous. It is a bit pricy, so look for used copies. The second edition is more standard since there is a lot of new notation in the third. There are a handful of minor typos that a careful read will weed out.
Rating:
Summary: A very good upper division textbook on mechanics
Review: This is an excellent way to learn classical mechanics. Actually, I prefer Landau's book. But Landau's book is about 170 pages and this one is about 650 pages.
And you get much more material with this book. The book is readable, and there are plenty of useful exercises. You start off with Lagrange's equations. Then you learn a little about the calculus of variations. And then the central force problem, kinematics of rigid body motion, and oscillations. And there's material on Hamilton's equations, canonical transformations, and Hamilton-Jacobi theory. In this manner, the text covers in 420 pages what Landau does in 170. There are more explanations and more examples. It's not a bad way to learn the subject.
In addition, there are chapters on special relativity, chaos, canonical perturbation theory, and continuous systems and fields. These are good topics to cover in a upper division class on mechanics. This book has a lot to offer a student and would be fun to teach from.
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