Rating: 
Summary: This is a very good mechanics book.
Review: Having read the previous reviews of this book, I was surprised by the range of opinions and ratings. I personally think it is one of the best book on mechanics I have seen. In university (30 years ago) I used Marion, 2nd edition, and found it abstract and frustrating at times, with not enough examples. Over the years I have accumulated many more mechanics books to try and better understand the advanced concepts, none of which I found wholly satisfactory. What I like about this book is the wealth of worked examples (I am amazed by those that say there are not enough examples), which allow you to really understand the concepts, and the new topics like Chaos theory, which many mechanics books do not cover. Also, I like the MathCad examples, since I am a fanatical MathCad user. I agree that the problems are challenging, but that is what problems are supposed to be! A solution manual would be nice. After studying a book like this, you can finally approach a book like Goldstein!
Rating: 
Summary: Advanced
Review: I took a course in Analytical Mechanics my junior year and I found this book to be very advanced. If you touch up on your linear algebra, differential equations, and know a few tricks with Taylor series expansions and a few trig identitities, you should be armed with a decent arsenal for the exercises in this book. Exercises take a lot of time and energy, and examples provide little help. There are also supplementary sections which solve problems using Mathcad and Mathematica. These are helpful, but only if you've used the software before. The text wastes no time in teaching you syntax. Be prepared to expend extra energy re-reading sections of this book. It sometimes lacks clarity.
Rating:
Summary: This is a very good mechanics book.
Review: I would actually rate this book closer to 4 and 1/2 stars. I used this text for two semesters of mechanics as a Junior undergraduate physics major and found it to be well written and well organized. I found the historical introductions to the chapters to capture my interest and the material in the chapters to be thorough and logical. My only complaint of the text is that it doesn't offer more examples. I definately feel that most students with a introductory physics background could learn the principles of mechanics using this book without the help of an instructor.
Rating: 
Summary: A good undergraduate mechanics text
Review: I would actually rate this book closer to 4 and 1/2 stars. I used this text for two semesters of mechanics as a Junior undergraduate physics major and found it to be well written and well organized. I found the historical introductions to the chapters to capture my interest and the material in the chapters to be thorough and logical. My only complaint of the text is that it doesn't offer more examples. I definately feel that most students with a introductory physics background could learn the principles of mechanics using this book without the help of an instructor.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent and brilliant book on Mechanics
Review: If you had chance only to buy one book on mechanics, this should be the one to. May be there is a kind of stetics in science, in wich case, this book is a good and ellegant example. Treats topics with precission and great economy, with only a few steps shows all that is important and essential. But this book is not for all: only my best students have understood it fully and have been influenced by its way of think and handle mechanical problems
Rating: 
Summary: elegantly condensed, not practical
Review: Physics major from Purdue U.
Author fails to have enough examples worked out as well as solutions to exorcises. Without feedback from the book, one is required to waste a great deal of time confiming solutions.A detailed solution guide would complete this text, if one existed! I encourage anyone to write one.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible Text Book
Review: Problems go right from incredibly easy to impossible with nothing in between -- and some are incorrect! The questions almost always have ambiguity to some extent and the focus seems to be on algebra instead of real physics. With books like these it is no wonder there are such few people in physics. Will someone PLEASE write a decent physics text?
Rating:
Summary: expenseive and bad
Review: terrible book, don't expect to learn physics by yourself from this book. You will waste a lot of time. The book has a solution manual for instructor only, and your grader use them to correct your homework.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: This book contains 3rd year undergrad mechanics. Multivariable and differential calculus are definitely required. Some of the new math (more advanced calculus, such as tensors, variations, etc.) that is needed is covered in the book fairly well, but 2 years of calculus is absolutely necessary. I thought the examples were pretty clear and most of the text helpful, minus the historical info (fluff). Most of the problems required abstract thinking from the text but didn't seem (and weren't) impossible, just difficult. The topics covered in this book are the following: Vectors, Newtonian Mechanics, Oscillations (where it gets harder), Motion in 3-D, Noninertial Reference Systems, Gravitation, Dynamics of Particle Systems, Rigid Body Mechanics (2-D and 3-D), Lagrangian Mechanics, and Dynamics of Oscillating Systems. Overall I would recommend this book. It would be a pretty good book for self-study, but a couple math suppliments on tensors and calculus of variations may be helpful (perhaps look at Dover Publications' books since they are cheap).
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good
Review: This book contains 3rd year undergrad mechanics. Multivariable and differential calculus are definitely required. Some of the new math (more advanced calculus, such as tensors, variations, etc.) that is needed is covered in the book fairly well, but 2 years of calculus is absolutely necessary. I thought the examples were pretty clear and most of the text helpful, minus the historical info (fluff). Most of the problems required abstract thinking from the text but didn't seem (and weren't) impossible, just difficult. The topics covered in this book are the following: Vectors, Newtonian Mechanics, Oscillations (where it gets harder), Motion in 3-D, Noninertial Reference Systems, Gravitation, Dynamics of Particle Systems, Rigid Body Mechanics (2-D and 3-D), Lagrangian Mechanics, and Dynamics of Oscillating Systems. Overall I would recommend this book. It would be a pretty good book for self-study, but a couple math suppliments on tensors and calculus of variations may be helpful (perhaps look at Dover Publications' books since they are cheap).
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