This book deals in a modern manner with a family of named problems from an old and mature subject, classical elasticity. These problems are formulated over either a half or the whole of a linearly elastic and isotropic two- or three-dimensional space, subject to loads concentrated at points or lines. The discussion of each problem begins with a careful examination of the prevailing symmetries, and proceeds with inverting the canonical order, in that it moves from a search for balanced stress fields to the associated strain and displacement fields.
The book, although slim, is  fairly well self-contained; the only prerequisite is a reasonable familiarity with linear algebra (in particular, manipulation of vectors and tensors) and with the usual differential operators of mathematical physics (gradient, divergence, curl, and Laplacian); the few nonstandard notions are introduced with care. Support material for all parts of the book is found in the final Appendix.

About this book.- Preface.- References.- 1 One-Dimensional Paradigms.- Part I Preliminaries.- 2 Elements of Linear Elasticity.- 3 Geometric and Analytic Tools.- Part II Three Classical Problems: Flamant's, Boussinesq's, andKelvin's.- 4 The Flamant Problem.- 5 The Boussinesq Problem.- 6 The Kelvin Problem.- Part III Three Other Problems: Melan's, Mindlin's, and Cerruti's.- 7 The Melan and Mindlin Problems.- 8 The Cerruti Problem.- Appendix.- Index of frequently used symbols.- Index.